Creating your own future
by PepperonyOwl
Summary: 1978 with a new student - Hermione. Her mere presence causes ripples in the time continuum and changes are taking place faster than she can account for them. To prevent a horrible war and her best friends tragic life she gave up everything in the hope of creating a better future. Now there is a new war on the horizon and everyone's life has indelibly altered. OLD VERSION BACK UP!
1. Some you win, some you lose

**Creating your own future**

Disclaimer: I don't own anything and I don't make any money off this. Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling and god-knows-who-else.

Please note that this FF will contain a very short crossover with Supernatural but that will only be on the side as a memory not anything big, hence why it's not in the Crossover category.

Also the pairing will be Hermione / Remus if there will be any pairing with her. Please note that I have not actually read or watched Books/Movies 6 & 7 so I know only what I have gathered from reading fanfiction.

Needless to say, this will be AU. From after 5th year onwards.

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A/N: Right. I got it. Revising this was a bad idea. Please stop with the mean comments *cry* . I swear I'll never do it again. I'll just go through for some grammar stuff I can spot or repetitious words. Nothing else. Please keep reading. And nice comments?

Please note that Chappie one is the only one that has been reread for grammar mistakes so far. None of the Betas I've contacted have replied so... anyone know anybody that would be interested in the job?

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"And last but not least we will be having a transfer student this year again. She has been homeschooled and taught in different countries. We are honoured to welcome Ms. Hermione Winchester amongst us for her final year."

After Dumbledore's speech there was hesitant applause and curious looks as a girl in a black cloak with messy, curly brown hair separated herself from the shadows and made her way to the front and towards the chair with the sorting hat on it.

James stared at her curiously.

"When was the last time we had a transfer, Pad?"

Sirius looked at him with raised eyebrows.

"Do you really not remember? That witch in our first year from Beauxbatons. She was a fourth year."

Remus leaned over to interject.

"Her name was Mireille and she was a Hufflepuff Prefect in her fifth year."

Sirius winked at him.

"Oooh, a Prefect, huh? Guess you wish you would have had to spend many lonely hours in the night with her, eh?"

James grinned mischievously and was about to open his mouth to comment as well and probably embarrass Remus when Lily, a red headed witch seated across from them, shot them a dark glare that made James shut up immediately but not before shushing his friends and telling them to watch the sorting.

Remus, Peter and Sirius rolled their eyes in unison before turning their focus back onto the witch who had by now put the sorting hat on her head and awaited its verdict.

"It'd better be GRYFFINDOR!"

With that Hermione quietly thanked the hat before taking it off and turning to face the crowds. Now that she was facing them, the Marauders could see that she was wearing an olive green roll neck jumper and tightly fitted black trousers. Her black cloak swirled about her, never inhibiting her movements whilst the top of her cloak adhered more closely to her figure but still allowed a wide range of movement. She ignored the wildly cheering Marauders who were trying their best to make room for her and instead headed for the end of the table.

With a pout Sirius calmed down and sat next to his friends again, taking up the space they had cleared for her easily again.

"I don't like her."

Remus grinned at his friend.

"Why? Because she was sensible enough to recognise you for the hooligan you are?"

Sirius glared at his friend, before breaking out into a smile and telling his friend to piss off, whilst he concentrated in gathering his preferred food onto his plate. James had ignored the byplay entirely whilst he focused all his attention on the pretty redhead seated across from him.

"So, Evans, how was your summer holiday?"

The redhead proceeded to give him short one-word answers to his queries before turning her attention to her friend, Mary, seated beside her and ignored James further attempts to talk to her.

Meanwhile, further down the table Hermione had seated herself with a small distance between herself and the Marauders. Unable to help herself, she started for a moment at the sheer amount of food that had appeared on the tables. For the last few years the war had been in full swing and she had been on the run constantly; food had become scarce quickly and you ate what you got your hands on. Your magic kept you going when the lack of food should have made you collapse and beyond that, when you were really desperate, you'd use permanent transfiguration and hope to the Gods that whoever now held a stone instead of a piece of bread wasn't starving as well. Hence why this was reserved for only the most dire of circumstances, when you couldn't steal or eat any food you may come across because it may be poisoned or otherwise deadly.

She only allowed herself a small pause and a barely noticeable clenching of her hands before she helped herself to a small portion of food, selectively choosing what would give her the most nutrition so she would receive all the vitamins and minerals she required as she knew from experience that she would be unable to consume the vast quantities that her body needed.

The shadows cleared from her eyes and she focused on the faces surrounding her, trying to remember whether they had lived or died and which side they had been on.

"Hi. Hermione, right? My name's Mark."

The blonde haired guy beside her held out his hand to her with a friendly smile. With her left hand she covertly ran some silent spells out of sheer paranoia before she shook his hand and smiled back.

"Hi Mark. It's a pleasure to meet you. So... what is Hogwarts like? I have read _Hogwarts, a History_ of course, but books only tell you so much."

He grinned.

"Ah, a secret bookworm. I think you'll feel right at home among the Seventh year girls. They are all part-Ravenclaw. Lily Evans especially, the redhead you see further down the table." He quickly pointed out the redhead currently glaring at the Harry-lookalike.

"She is also the Headgirl so you will probably have a lot of interaction with her in the first semester at least. Just across from her is James Potter, the guy with black hairs and glasses. He is the headboy. You can ask him for help as well if you need anything. He is usually quite decent, but just to warn you: He loves pranks."

Mark stopped pointing out people and turned back to her. His green eyes sparkled warmly and she finally remembered where she knew him from. Mark Tyler. Killed in an attack on Hogsmeade during his seventh year. He never even got to graduate. Rosier appeared to have taken him on and after a short spell exchange he'd been tortured and then, under Imperius, forced to kill himself.

With another blink she was back in the here and now and she looked closer at this boy – he was about 1.70 tall she reckoned, short, tousled blonde hair, high cheek bones, warm eyes and a near constant smile on his face. His built was not muscular, more of a wiry guy and he did not look as though he'd ever had to fight anyone. No scars, no wariness, just relaxed openness.

"Well, Hogwarts can be quite confusing and you can get lost quite easily with the moving stairs and doors that are actually walls or walls that are actually doors. But don't worry, Gryffindors stick together and you'll easily make friends and have people around you going to the same classes. We won't leave you to figure it all out yourself."

He smiled at her and she nodded back.

"So, anyone got maps of the castle that can be used?"

Out of the corner of her eyes she noticed how the marauders froze in their movements and eavesdropped more intently now.

"No – No maps. Funny, I hadn't even thought of that, but that would make sense. I wonder why they don't hand out maps."

A snort across from her and Mark got her attention. A girl with bright pink hair sat across from them and had raised her eyebrows at them.

"C'mmon, where would the fun in that be? If you had a map you'd never get lost and everyone would know all the secret passageways. Instead you can find a lot of hidden secrets – rooms, shortcuts, passageways that lead nowhere... Hogwarts would lose half of it's mystery and intrigue if you gave kids a map. By the way" with that she turned to Hermione. "my name is Rose. I'm that idiot's twin sister."

Hermione smiled and nodded to her.

"Hermione. But then again, you probably knew that already."

Rose Tyler. She had dropped out of school after her brother died and it was rumoured she got into battle magics. Apparently she took out quite a few death eaters before they got her at home; only 14 months after her brother died. Her parents died in the same attack. To make an example of why you should not resist, they had severely mutilated her whilst keeping her alive and left her body on a pike in the middle of Diagon Alley. It had taken the Ministry a week before they had found the right spells to be able to take her body down.

"Have you got any siblings?"

Rose smiled at her, eyes soft as she regarded her twin and it was clear to Hermione who saw herself as the 'elder' of the two and thus more protective one.

"No, I am an only child."

Their conversations were then interrupted by Professor McGonagall – who still had dark brown hair and looked remarkably young – as she was handing out the time tables.

"Ah, Ms. Winchester. I am Professor Minerva McGonagall. I will be your head of house as well as your transfiguration teacher. If you have any difficulties please feel free to come to my office. I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your entrance exams. I hear you did extraordinarily well."

The strict professor gave her a pleased smile, before handing her two sheets of paper.

"Also, please let me know which classes you would like to take. You will need to choose two optional subjects: The first sheet of paper will complete itself automatically once I have agreed to your choices whilst the second sheet contains your potential future classes. There are some mandatory subjects but the rest are your choice. Please choose wisely and bear in mind that these choices affect your future career possibilities. Please let me know your choice by tomorrow morning. I am sure your classmates would be happy to tell you about each of the subjects but if you have any further queries my door is always open."

"Thank you very much, Professor McGonagall. I will make sure to consider my options wisely before presenting you with my choices."

The transfiguration teacher nodded in approval at her words before returning to her seat next to the headmaster. Hermione cast a glance at the parchment with her options and noticed new courses not offered in her time to her surprise: Battle Magics and Duelling. She momentarily thought about changing her originally plans and including these two before she caught herself. Any magic taught to seventh years would be far below what she'd already been taught. And Duelling would presumably be for Tournament purposes rather than real life.

Nodding to herself she chose the core subject she knew she needed: DADA, Transfigurations, Charms, Potions, Herbology and chose Arithmancy, Ancient runes and Care of Magical Creatures.

With her choices made she packed the parchments into her bag so she wouldn't lose them. Whilst she had been perusing her schedule she had noticed that Professor Dumbledore had made his typical speech, but she had ignored him – for once in her life ignored the headmaster - and only made sure to pay attention if anything out of the ordinary was said.

"Hello, Hermione right? My name is Lily Evans and I am the headgirl. If you need anything I will be happy to help you. Also if you require any of the materials of the last few years talk either to me or Remus Lupin over there. Now, if you'll follow me, I'll show you the way to the Common Room."

Hermione had seen her walk over and had already grabbed her bag, ready to be led to the Gryffindor tower since she was not supposed to know how to get there yet.

"Hi Lily. Pleasure to meet you."

Lily proceeded to lead the way after she had said her goodbyes to Mark and Rose, chattering on about the ghosts, the teachers, the classes and about their classmates. Her brown haired companion made sure to smile and nod at all the right places and wondered slightly if this was how Ron and Harry used to feel when she talked about Hogwarts, a History but then dismissed the thought just as rapidly. She'd rather not think about what she lost just now; the memories would catch up with her quickly enough anyway. They always did. She'd rather concentrate on the people she could save now.

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It was close to 11 p.m. when the Marauders came in through the portrait hole, tumbling over themselves in their haste and breathless with laughter.

"Oh Merlin, did you see..."

"I know, but the best was..."

Remus quickly hushed the other three as soon as he noticed her. Hermione suddenly found herself under the scrutiny of intensely familiar four teenage boys.

After a short, awkward pause Remus cleared his throat and approached her. His shaggy brown hair hung slightly into his eyes, his smile was wide and his posture was relaxed. His eyes were brown with a hint of amber, but he did not have the despair permanently etched into his face, barely any scars though she recognised some which were a lot less faded than she'd half expected to see. The most important difference though was he stood straight and he met her eyes. Adult Remus had a confidence born from being rejected his entire life and knowing who he was yet he'd always had this hunch in his shoulders, as if he was apologising for his mere presence.

This Remus in front of her was happy and relaxed and brought a melancholic smile to her lips. She hoped he'd stay this way.

"Hi, my name is Remus. These idiots are Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew and our headboy – with a massive crush on Lily Evans – James Potter."

"Hey! I'll have you know she loves me too", James interjected, now stepping up.

"Yeah right, Prongs. You mean she loved you when she rejected you date this morning? Or every other time you asked her in the last 6 years?"

Sirius snorted at his best friend, grinning widely. Even with him the difference was so very pronounced: Azkaban had changed him, but yet never allowed him the time to grow up, leaving him a bitter, childish man in some ways as he was left without any time to adjust jumping from one extreme to the next. Now though, his eyes seem aglow with an inner light; he was so alive with happiness and she could see the deep love he held for his almost-brother.

"Hey, I'll have you know she is going to say yes this year."

Even Peter piped up now "You said that last year."

She still couldn't bring herself to look closely at Peter. Or James. Too many memories – and only the bad ones were close to the surface. So she avoided their eyes and watched Remus and Sirius instead, who made her heart feel lighter and the future seem so much more hopeful.

"And the year before that!"

"And the year before that!"

"Face it mate, she ain't gonna talk to you nicely, never mind go out with you anytime soon."

"No, I'm telling you guys, this is the year that Evans will fall in love with me-"

"I thought she was already in love with you?!" Peter interjected, confused, but was ignored as James simply continued speaking.

"We are headboy and headgirl! Our rooms are so close together and we go to the same meetings and organise stuff together! You'll see. This is the year!"

"Stuff?" Remus murmured, not at all convinced that James even knew what being a headboy even entailed.

"I am by no means an expert in the matters of the heart" Hermione finally drew all their attention back to her before this could escalate further. "but I believe calling her by her first name would be a good start for a romantic relationship – and by that I don't mean silly names such as 'Lily flower' or similar such phrases."

There was a pause as the boys absorbed that and stared at each other, before staring back at her. James' grin grew and he smiled widely at her.

"See? Why didn't you guys ever come up with this? This is brilliant. I promise, if we get married, you get to be bridesmaid!"

With that James plopped down on the couch next to her and tried putting his arm around. Hermione, who had stopped reading her book moments before they'd ever entered through the portrait hole - when she'd heard their steps rushing towards the Gryffindor common room. Her finger had still been between the pages of the book to where she had last read.

However the moment that James' arm swung at her, instinct had taken over and James found himself head down on the couch, arm twisted upwards behind his back, his wand up on the staircase to the girls dormitories and her knee pressing into his back whilst her other hand held her wand aloft, ready to cast if anyone so much as moved. Even Remus' werewolf reflexes hadn't been that fast and he hadn't caught half the manoeuvres she was making. The three boys just stood slightly dumbfounded staring, whilst Hermione blinked, once, twice and then caught up to the situation.

She released James, vaulted over the sofa to grab his wand as he wouldn't be able to go up the girls' staircase and held it out to him.

"James, I am sorry for grabbing you like that. Here's your wand. I apologise, I have trained my reflexes quite sharply as we were travelling through different countries and you would never know when someone wasn't quite as much a gentleman as you are. Sorry if I scared you."

All four boys were slightly weary as James took his wand back from her, before Sirius broke the silence by starting to chuckle.

"Man, she really had you mate. You got wailed on by a girl!"

His laughter grew louder and he started to hold his stomach.

"Oh- that was great, Hermione. You're officially my hero. And James' knight in shining armour."

That finally had the other boys cracking up. Hermione allowed herself a small smile, happy that she hadn't scared them off and even more so that no one else had been here to see her freak out. With a couple of good nights the boys went off to their bed room, still teasing each other.

With a relieved sigh, Hermione took her wand back out and with the ease that only comes from practice, she warded the main entrance to the common room to the best of her ability – which essentially meant that beside Dumbledore or Voldemort himself no one was getting in this room that meant harm or that was passing information along.

She had had to await the Marauders return so she could make the Gryffindor tower as safe as she possibly could. This had been one of her specialties; travelling through different countries with an eclectic mix of people allowed her to learn French, Spanish, Russian, Egyptian, Japanese, Czech, Italian and Greek wards.

Each country was more specialised on different things – Russian wards for example were geared far more along the lines of the Muggle government. They don't negotiate with terrorists. You kidnap someone and their wards will kill anyone, victim, innocent bystanders as well as the terrorists. You did not even try to kidnap Russians. The wards were mostly a closing kill line – anyone steps across and they get killed. And the circle would tighten until everyone inside it was dead. It was the most basic but also most efficient way if you had a bar full of Death Eaters. You can't apparate, Portkey or floo away.

Of course this wouldn't be best for the common rooms full of children nor for safe houses. But she had her personal set of wards interlaying one another so even if you managed to disable one, the magic from it would empower the others and cause them to mutate into slightly different wards each time. These were the wards she layered across the Portrait, the fireplace, the dormitories she placed more on the 7th year ones than on any others including even very simple proximity alerts.

Around her bed she silently cast even more spells so that no one could touch, interfere or even get near her bed unless it was herself as identified by her magical core. Due to her past experiences she also included silencing wards, before finally stripping down and getting ready for bed.

A few days ago she had finally had a bath after Merlin only knows how long and it had been so incredibly luxurious. She'd never take that for granted again. She lay down on her back in her bed, closed the curtains with a wave of her hand, after she had made sure she had several knifes and two wands in various places around the room and in her bed. Feeling somewhat safer, she closed her eyes and promptly fell asleep. It had been something she'd learned fairly quickly on the run. Fall asleep when you can, you never know when you'll next be able to grab a few minutes.

_"Run!", Hermione screamed to Ron and Harry as they quickly grabbed their bags and ran._

_After what seemed like hours but was probably only ten minutes of ducking and rolling and running, weaving through trees and jumping over roots she realised that there were only five death eaters behind her and that she had somehow lost sight of Ron and Harry. She didn't have much more time to think, ducking a Sectumsempra and jumping into a roll quickly when she noticed the tell tale Avada Kedavra out of the corner of her eyes._

_She couldn't hear their panting breaths anymore nor their steps and she was furious with herself for not noticing earlier. They had never agreed on a new meeting spot since their last one was discovered._

_Hermione gave a heaving sigh, realising she'd finally made it past the Anti-Apparition barrier. The tingle of it left her slightly euphoric as she disappeared with a crack. She then proceeded to apparate another four times after some bus, train and taxi journeys in between to ensure no one was following her._

_Out of breath, in the middle of no one's land, Hermione popped up her tent, walked the perimeter, set the wards and cooked some tinned food on autopilot. She realised then and there that Harry and Ron would probably never find her again._

_They had been in France, Italy, Czech Republic and UK so far. They would have no idea where to even start looking – and she didn't either. That was the way they operated. Unpredictability. It had seemed such a good idea to escape Death Eater's notice but now she found herself thwarted and unable to think where her two boys could have possibly escaped to. A quiet voice in her head decided to remind her that that was only really relevant IF they had managed to get away in the first place._

_With a slight huff and desperate laughter that threatened to escape her, she hugged her knees as she stared into the fire. Then the tears came. What would she do now?_

_There were no further safe havens, no more Hogwarts, no Ministry; not that the ministry had ever been that much of a safe place but still, it had been something, someone. She had no refuge now._

_With great, heaving sobs, she curled in on herself and wished with all her heart that Ron and Harry were safe somewhere, that they, too, had escaped the Death Eaters. Now that she was all alone she wasn't sure if she could do anything to help them if they weren't safe. They had always been together, the Golden Trio: from first through to fifth year, including fighting Cerberus, demented Professors, Basilisks, Azkaban escapees, followed by War Mage training and Horcrux hunting. A part of her had though them inseparable. Truth was, she wasn't sure what she could do without them. She read books, she wasn't a great fighter – not compared to Harry, nor was she a great strategist like Ron who only needed to glance at a battlefield before he had several successful battle plans in his head. Alone, she couldn't hold a candle to experienced Death Eaters._

_She dreaded being without Harry and Ron. They had been her courage and her hope, her rock. What was she without them?_

With a shuddering sob Hermione shook herself awake. It took her another three breaths before she could conjure up the time. 3.56 a.m. She had gotten about 4 hours of sleep – not bad. She vaguely wondered what she would have done if she had known back then, she'd never see her boys again.

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Please... Some nice comments? Pretty Please? With cherries on top...?


	2. Chapter 2

**Creating your own future**

Chapter 2

This one is dedicated to my three reviewers: K8-Amelia, piperholly7 and LK-HoGwArTs-hEaDgIrL. Thank you very much for taking the time to review.

I've tried to paragraph it as people are talking but it was kind of difficult. Let me know what you think :)

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**Recap – Chapter 1:**

With a shuddering sob Hermione shook herself awake. 3.56 a.m. She had gotten about 4 hours of sleep – not bad. She vaguely wondered what she would have done if she had known back then, she'd never see her boys again.

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With barely any noise Hermione swished her wand to noiselessly call her things to her. She snuck past the other girls who appeared deep in the land of dreams, though she found herself smiling slightly when she spotted a shy blonde haired girl who had been introduced to her as Nicola – she was imitating a starfish across her bed, feet on opposite ends and her upper body twisted with her head dangling down at the sight. And she was snoring. Shaking her head slightly she went past them and into the bathroom. Sights such as that one had become uncommon during the war. All the renegade groups she had joined over the years and yet everyone woke at the slightest noise or magic practiced nearby. Even muggles and squibs' bodies had adapted and had recognised the feel of magic practised nearby; she was still uncertain as to how that had been possible. There had never really been enough time to study the how's and why's of such things. You just accepted it as a very helpful addition to everyone's repertoire of survival skills and didn't look the gift horse in the mouth.

Closing the bathroom door behind her she took her shower gel, shampoo and conditioner as she made her way to the showers. With another quick spell she was naked as she took the shower. The hot water aggravated some of her more recent injuries and she realised she would need to take care of them. After arriving a week ago, she had deemed them a low priority and far below all the other things that had taken up all her attention. Establishing her supposed life here had been rather difficult and she had been forced to create multiple portkeys and apparate herself between different destinations, modifying memories and leaving paper trails. It had been hard work and by the end of 5 days she had just been happy to be allowed to arrive early at Hogwarts and to rest. And take a bath – definitely the bath.

Finishing quickly she moved back to the sinks and in front of the full length mirrors. Pausing slightly, hesitatingly, Hermione faltered. Finally, with a somewhat resigned sigh she spelt the door shut before dropping her glamour charm. She flinched back before forcing herself to look into the mirror. During the war it had never been a priority but now she realised how much it had taken from her. After her arrival, she had simply made sure to spell herself to look as she remembered looking back at this age – beyond a few curse scars which she hid through muggle means.

Hermione remembered herself with a full face, only just having more definite facial features, bright eyes, bright smile and untameable, bushy hair. Chubby wouldn't have been what she would have used to describe herself but she knew she could have easily gone in that direction: reading books at all times didn't really lend itself to physical exercise beyond the exertion of carrying some of the larger tomes; though even then she'd had feather light charms. The only reason she had always remained relatively slim is due to her rather intensive studying and reading habits: she'd frequently forgotten to eat food until someone reminded her.

But the person she looked at in the mirror couldn't have been further from the formerly exuberant and happy person: Her hair had lost its healthy lustre, instead of bouncing around her head it now hand as a tangled, dry mess with split ends and no life to it. Her face was gaunt and caved in, she looked hollow and starved; her skin was sallow and stretched taunt. Her eyes looked just tired and almost black rather than almond coloured and there were shockingly large black shadows beneath her eyes showing her lack of sleep. She used to have honey coloured skin most times due to the summer trips with her parents and Harry and Ron dragging her out for some "fun". This paleness was not her – though her analytical brain was quick to supply her with the information that lack of vitamins would at least partly cause this: which meant that her lack of a stable diet and most importantly a nutritious diet had caused this. Even last week, hopping around different continents - due to apparating it had sometimes quite literally been a hop – she had not really thought much of her diet and eaten when she remembered - which wasn't all that often. Part of her wanted to laugh at the unfairness of it all.

Breathing in deeply and suppressing the hysterical laughter she continued examining herself. Physically running had drastically changed her fitness. There had been some days were they would be running for days with barely a break and the frequent spell exchanges and close fights had meant she was lean but well muscled – not large bodybuilder type mass but the lean muscles that come only from continued strength and pushing past your body's boundaries. Those she missed. Over the last 3 months she had been less running and more in hiding, researching this time jump and the history of this time. It had never even occurred to her that she would be losing muscle mass over that time, too caught up in the feverish dream of changing it all.

Had she ever been considered pretty, now she certainly looked like a victim of a particularly bad case of abuse. Scars littered her body – sometimes from muggle weapons other times caused by spells. Gunshot wounds, knife marks and spell damage; never mind the curse marks. Bellatrix had been kind enough to inscribe the words MUDBLOOD on her right arm and Dolohov had managed to open up her ribcage, leaving her with a curse scar diagonally across her upper body and ending just below her left breast whilst Lucius Malfoy had taken great pleasure in writing "Renegade" on her left ankle. That one in particular had not inspired her with fear as Malfoy had intended by making her out as a traitor to the regime but instead gave her a cause and the will to continue fighting. All her warriors, all the groups she had joined over time had been nicknamed the Renegades since then. It had been her way of having one over them.

However, the one curse scar that no one really knew about was on her inner thigh. Whenever she saw it, she still shuddered and part of her wanted to cower in fear of the two words.  
"Camp Potter".

In a stroke of genius Voldemort had created four camps that Muggleborns were sent to – the things that went on there were only spoken of in fearful whispers but he had successfully managed to instil fear in everyone at the names "Granger", "Weasley", "Dumbledore" or "Potter". On the rare occasions that people were rescued from these camps they wouldn't speak, most of them too scarred and too horrified to put words to their experiences. Mere mentions of the names would send them into a mindless terror, frightened beyond words of this unspeakable evil. She was not much different, except that she had been forced back into the leader role and she had hidden her fears deep inside. Still any mention made her heart stop and her mind would keep telling her to run – run far away from whoever had mentioned that twice bedevilled place.

Shaking off the emotions and memories she grabbed her makeup kit and proceeded to cover the scars on her ankle and her arm, ensuring the makeup was spelt to stay on no matter what weather or spells she was hit with. Then she used her wand and with a twist of her wrist and murmured words the illusion covered her again, before settling into her skin. It had been a charm of her own making which basically imitated the polyjuice and allowed the person to feel as though they really were the person that others saw – the hair, the skin – if anyone touched it, it would feel real. The illusion – as she called it – would not fade under potions or a simple finite.

Hermione Winchester got dressed quickly and finished her bathroom routine. With a quick spell she had her hair dry and brushed before extinguishing the lights and sneaking out of the bathroom and into the common room, but not before summoning her book bag. Finding the common room as empty as expected at this time of the night she moved determinedly towards the portrait hole. The fat lady was deeply asleep in her portrait so Hermione continued sneaking through the darkened corridors towards the Kitchen. After tickling the pear in the portrait she moved into the busy room. Almost immediately she found herself surrounded by five eager house elves. With a smooth movement she knelt down to eyelevel with them before addressing them.

"Good Morning. My name is Hermione, I don't believe I have had the pleasure of meeting you yet." Her eyes had focused in on the elf that had been so helpful to her in the last few days quickly but he was quite busy baking bread at the moment and she was always glad to meet more of this wonderful race. House elves had made a decisive impact on the war and most importantly for them. It had been a house elf that rescued her from the camp before the kill line had been activated.

"I is Lena." Stated a fierce house elf, meeting her eyes head on and smiling widely at the respect she had shown for them.

"This being Robby, Plemmy, Tilly and Malia." She pointed to each in turn receiving nods in turn though Malia looked to be particularly shy and only glanced at her quickly.

Making sure to smile softly at the elves she decided to concentrate on Lena, as she seemed to be in charge.

"It is a pleasure to meet you all and my apologies for disturbing you when you are so busy preparing everyone's breakfast." Most of the elves in the room gave her shy smiles or waves at that as well as exclamation over how it was no bother, really.

"Lena", Hermione continued. "I managed to get myself in quite a state over the summer and I appear to lack in my essential vitamins and minerals. I have also lost more weight than I'd like. Do any of you know about nutrition?"

Before she could expound further, Lena interrupted her with big eyes. "You'se is wanting to speak to Jeremy." With a snap of her fingers another elf turned up at her side. He held several sheets of parchment in front of him and barely glanced at her before looking questioningly at the other elf.

"Miss Hermi- Hermia- Herminny" with an excusing glance at her at the mangling of her name Lena continued. "needs nutritious breakfast like Mr. Snapey."

The elf Jeremy now turned to her and looked at her closely before looking into her eyes.

"Glamour?"

She nodded at this short question and the elf frowned slightly. Out of the corner of her eyes she noticed the other elves dispersing back to continue their original tasks.

"Miss, would you allow me to use magic to determine which nutrition you require?"

Almost unwillingly, Hermione's eyebrows raised themselves. She'd met a lot of elves: free elves, elves belonging to snooty, rich people and to kind rich people, as well as elves belonging to poor people and other renegades yet none had been able to enunciate clearly and use grammatically correct sentences. The potential was staggering – was it simply a lack of education? And if that was the case, then – for a moment her inner curiousity had peeked out and made her want to research and experiment to help house elves again – though not with a name such as 'S.P.E.W.'. But she had squashed it out of habit more than anything else before it could ever gain foothold. All that remained was vague intrigue and calmness.

"I trust you, Jeremy, but please do not share these results with anyone else – not even Dumbledore."

The house elf shook his head wildly at the very idea.

"We do not serve headmaster – we serve the castle. He would not have the right to demand this information from us unless Miss is danger to its inhabitants." Whilst saying this he proceeded to find a clear parchment and then he snapped his fingers. Hermione felt a touch of embarrassment at having Jeremy look at her ill health. Her parents had taught her better, had drummed into her that a healthy mind lived only in a healthy body. In turn she'd made sure to never eat too much sugar or too few vegetables. But when food become scarce this had obviously fallen by the wayside, yet she still felt as though she ought to defend herself to the house elf, even though she knew he would be unlikely to pass judgement on her.

Jeremy's eyebrows had disappeared under his hat – a wizard's hat – before giving her a short glance.

"You will be allocated Tibby."

The aforementioned elf appeared in front of her. Tibby had a tiger outfit on, which made even her blink twice in surprise, including a hat with ears. It looked like a muggle costume though the paws were flapping on the side of the costume rather than having its hands confined.

"Tibby – I will create a special menu for Miss-"

"Sorry – Hermione. Hermione Winchester, but please just call me Hermione, no Miss."

Jeremy nodded at her before focusing on the small, overly exuberant elf in front of him again. She suspected that this elf was a small child still by their standards.

"a menu for Hermione. You will be responsible for making it and delivering it to her each day. Hermione will give you a copy of her schedule and you will appear to her in between these to ensure she receives 5 meals a day and a healthy amount of snacks. Healthy snacks. Make sure no one else sees you. If she eats in the Great Hall, make her plate appear in front of her there. If there are any issues, come to me directly. No one else."

Hermione was impressed at the lengths they were going to for her but realised that they were probably doing something very similar for Severus Snape and other unfortunate children that came to them with such issues.

Tibby nodded excitedly, bouncing on his feet in eagerness, eyes lit at being given this special mission.

"Herminny! I's will do's proud. No more hunger!" The tiger-clad elf proclaimed with zeal making her smile despite the need to cringe at the way the small elf was speaking. Knowing now that elves were quite capable of speaking clearly she decided she'd try to teach the small elf. It was the least she could do for all the help she'd been given.

"Well, Tibby, thank you very much for all your help. I am very grateful."

Clearing his throat, Jeremy interrupted her. "Hermione, we will need to meet at least every two weeks to monitor your progress. For the moment I would advise against exercising as it would not help you build muscles at this stage though in about a month's time I would probably recommend starting exercises to increase your fitness and health depending on your progress. If you have any need of either of us, please call us. And please hand Tibby a copy of your schedule once you have it."

With a thank you to both of them she went back towards the Gryffindor common rooms. Hermione was adjusting her mental plans for the next month to take this new information into account. This would postpone some of her plans but not fatally so. She had made sure to allow herself plenty of time for unaccountable situations such as this one when she decided on the time jump.

Luckily for her the fat lady was awake in her portrait upon her return allowing her to enter the room upon reciting this month's password – Phoenix. Instead of the empty room she'd left this morning she found Remus Lupin sitting in a chair by the fire, reading a rather heavy looking book which she recognised as containing the most up to date laws – she'd read it prior to Harry's trial in the summer before 5th year whilst working herself into a tizzy. Smiling slightly, she approached the fellow seventh year.

"And here I thought I am the only early riser." Hermione sat down across from him, taking her own book out – concerning ward runes. "I have to say, I expected Lily, not you."

"Aw, I'm hurt. I'll have you know Lily frequently sleeps in until noon on weekends. She is not what I'd call a morning person." Remus grinned at her mischievously. "So what's got you up so early? First day of classes?"

The brown haired girl laughed. "No. Just couldn't sleep anymore. Can I ask what you're looking for?" She nodded towards the book he was holding to indicate what she was talking about.

"Ah, just curious about the state of the Wizarding government at this time." He answered vaguely. Hermione guessed that he was probably looking up their Werewolf regulations and similar laws. "May I ask what you were doing before you came to Hogwarts?"

The shaggy haired teen had closed his book and looked at her curiously. Sighing slightly Hermione packed her book away too, realising that she would be unlikely to get much – if any – studying done until he was finished quizzing her.

"My parents were always into the whole exploring-the-world type thing. We were constantly on the move and my education is quite varied. We lived in different cities and countries across the world. I got taught by locals and by my parents – sometimes we managed to get ourselves into quite a few dangers. The overall effect is that I have never completed a full school year anywhere and this is my first time at any kind of magic school." Hermione shrugged slightly. "I was mostly taught to survive and how to defend myself."

"Yeah – we saw that last night. Your reflexes are quite impressive."

Hermione smiled, taking this as a compliment. With interrogation skills honed through the years she managed to make sure that it was only Remus talking over the next hour until his friends turned up. As they moved to join them she noticed how the room was slowly filling up and it still sent shivers down her spine. Crowded spaces with fellow fighters she could do. Crowded spaces with potential enemies and mainly people who wouldn't be able to defend themselves and were just as likely to take off her arm as that of their enemies – yeah, not so much.

"Remus, could you let Lily know that I have gone to meet up with Professor McGonagall before breakfast?" She didn't await his acknowledgement and only waved at the other Marauders, still half asleep working their way towards them. Sneaking out of the portrait hole for the second time that day she took a shortcut down to the office of her once favourite teacher.

"Excuse me, Professor McGonagall?" After knocking she'd opened the door to her offices slightly, hoping to find the Professor still in here rather than at breakfast. As it turned out, she was in luck.

"Ah, Ms. Winchester. I presume you have made your decision then? Any questions?"

Hermione approached, moving her hair behind her ear whilst handing her teacher her list of subject choices.

"No questions, Professor."

The transfiguration teacher studied her list momentarily before waving her wand and creating a timetable.

"Thank you, Ms. Winchester, for not picking conflicting times. This is your schedule for the next year. I am sure your fellow classmates will help you find your way to the different rooms."

With another quick thank you Hermione was out the door and found Tibby already in front of her, wringing her hands, eyes shining and standing on her toes to stare at her with rather wide eyes. With a wave of her wand Hermione quickly created a copy of her time table for the elf and received a Granny Smith apple in return.

"Impressive timing Tibby. Thank you. But I am already on my way to breakfast; I won't need this apple."

The elf, who had previously looked rather young and overly excited now turned a stern gaze onto her.

"Herminny must be eating apple before breakfast. Stimulates stomach and makes it prepared for more food. And apple healthy is. Good for Herminny. Now eat."

Eyebrows raised, she took a bite of the apple. "Okay. Thank you very much, Tibby." Hermione kneeled at eye level again. "I'll make sure to finish the apple before breakfast."

The elf nodded sternly at her before relaxing again tugging on its tiger ears in embarrassment. She then disappeared again, presumably into the kitchen.

Hermione sat at the end of the rather desolate Gryffindor table – they appeared to have mostly late risers such as Lily and Ron rather than early ones as all the other tables were already mainly filled with students and the Great Hall was filled with sounds of laughter and chatter. Taking her rune book out again she proceeded to study whilst eating from the plate that had turned up in front of her, barely noticing what she was eating. Runes were incredibly versatile and useful. Wards, permanent or moving, attached to an item, a person or the ground – so many interesting things one could do with runes. Realising how much time was passing she checked her schedule – Potions first.

Seeking out Lily along the table she found her, red faced, arguing with James. With a shrug to herself she stood up and tapped Lily on the shoulder.

"What?" The redhead asked abruptly, turning towards her with an annoyed expression and obviously not at all happy at being interrupted. Realising she was talking to the new girl though, Lily got flustered quickly and apologised.

Hermione waved it away. "It's my fault for interrupting. I was just wondering if you knew anyone else who had Potions first thing this morning and could show me the way." That was a big fat lie. She knew that Lily, potions genius, would be attending this class.

"Oh, I have potions first as well. If you'll just give me two seconds to grab my things I'll be happy to lead the way." Grabbing her bookbag from the floor the redhead glared at James.

"You know" Hermione added just before they left to James, unable to help herself. "contrary to boys mythology about girls, pulling our pigtails isn't really the way into our hearts. Try being nice for a change." With that comment Hermione followed Lily who had waited patiently for her.

"I don't know why you bother. I have tried talking to him for years but he just won't stop bugging me. Evans this, Evans that. Seven years of this and he still hasn't caught on!"

Fuming the redheaded witch stomped ahead, forcing Hermione to keep up. The entire way to the Potions lab her best friend's future mother kept ranting about her future husband and finally Hermione could see the passion between the two. Once James started being nice, Lily would finally allow her feelings and they'd be together in no time. In no time they found themselves in the Potions Lab with Horace Slughorn at the front. Finding a desk and settling down she unpacked all the necessary equipment. Once everyone had gathered, including a rather upset looking Severus Snape, Horace started the lesson.

"My dear students, all of you have shown excellent skill and promise in your OWLs. Last year was hard but this year will be harder than anything previous. So today we will be brewing the Veritaserum – this has been condoned by the ministry. This potion is extremely difficult to brew and even harder to get right. I look forward to your tries. There is a small flask of Felix Felicis for anyone who finishes it successfully." He waved the golden liquid in front of them.

Hermione could have laughed in relief. During the war everyone had known how to brew Veritaserum – if you didn't you were as good as dead. With quiet efficiency she mingled among the other students to obtain the ingredients.

Needless to say, she had obtained the flask. Severus Snape only seemed more infuriated by her now. Great. She really didn't need that.

Realising her next class was outside – Care of magical creatures – she moved quickly towards the large hut erected in the middle of the space outside.

"Good Morning, my dear students – today we will study something very exciting. Everyone, be careful and have your shield charms up. I present you..." Professor Kettleburn allowed a small pause before the tent disappeared and they were face to face with a "Hungarian Horntail."

Gasps echoed across the room and Hermione had already her wand in hand and an invisible Protegus Maxima was across the students. Fool of a professor – just like Hagrid. No safety for the children.

"Of course this is a baby. It can't even fly yet – but it can spout fire. So up with the Protego's now children."

The students followed his lead and Hermione allowed her Maxima Protego charm to dispel whilst she cast the normal protection charm along with the other students. What followed was a very interesting discourse on dragons and this particular species.

All her classes that day turned out to be similarly interesting. It looked as though the professors wanted to start their seventh years with a "bang". Tibby had faithfully sought her out throughout the day and force-fed her bits of food. All in all she'd felt pretty good about herself – that should have been her first sign.

However, as she turned a corner not far from the library she was surprised by four seventh year Slytherins. They had blocked her off and when she tried to get past them they moved to stop her.

"Excuse me" She said with a friendly smile, knowing she had her wand in her hand already, albeit hidden and a knife in her left hand as a last resort.

None of them moved, but instead let out a spiteful laugh.

"Hey, mudblood. You've only just moved here, so you didn't know, but your kind isn't welcome here."

An amused smile on her lips she leant back slightly, tilting her head semi-curiously.

"My kind?"

One of the boys stepped forward, sneering at her as if she was a foul, disgusting _thing_. And part of her wanted to pet his head and coo at him just to make it obvious how **stupid** he was. Unfortunately, something told her they wouldn't understand. So she looked at Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest and Idiot waiting for their next stupid line.

"Yeah, your kind. You know, mudblood, people like you shouldn't have magic. Filthy, the lot of you. Filthy and disgusting. You're not worth the sole on my shoes. Someone should really take the magic from you and distribute it among your betters. Now, as one such individual, as one of your betters, you had better listen to me and do everything I say or you won't like the consequences, understood, Mudblood?"

Her smile turned icy and she turned her gaze to the floor, making them think she was acquiescing to this stupid thing. Oh she would love to teach these boys a lesson, but maybe she could refrain. It all dependNT on what they said next.

"Now, mudblood, lick my boots."

Dumbest's friends let out hissing laughs. Hermione's grin widened, eyes turning to ice as her blood pumped quickly. Dumbest really lived up to his name. Well, his fault.

With a wave of her wand he was on his back on the floor and his shoe was in her hand. His co-perpetrators stared at her with wide eyes whilst trying to quickly reach for their wands. Mentally, Hermione rolled her eyes whilst on the outside she put her most innocent expression on and raised the shoe to her face.

"What the hell-"

Dumb started to say and she interrupted, using her most innocent voice that she had used to get Ron and Harry out of trouble with Professors before.

"But you said I should lick your shoe."

The three boys were dumbfounded whilst the fourth, on the floor, was still nursing his aching back. With a shrug she returned the shoe. Smiling vindictively, she cast a silent spell on the boys before casting a spell that caused the shoes to be pulled off the other boys as well. Idiot had managed a smile but it was so far off target she didn't even need to side step it.

With a laugh she left the boys to be chased by their shoes who had now grown huge, slimy tongues which would alternate between licking them in their face and leaving a slimy trail across them and kicking them in their bottoms.

Still amused she went into the Common Rooms to hopefully wind down somewhat before night time.

She had finished her homework already but now she had a few new books to read from the Hogwarts library. Curling herself up in front of the fire in her favourite armchair she started reading. This chair gave her the advantage of being able to observe the entrances and exits without moving so she could observe everyone and note if anything dangerous happened.

After several hours Sirius sidled up to her and offered her a range of candies.

"Look at it as our welcome to Gryffindor." His smile was charming, but she noticed James' shaking shoulders, Remus' uncomfortable looks and Peter's excited face.

With a smile she accepted. The ring on her hand warmed slightly as it took off the charms and potions on the candy. She daintily stuck it in her mouth before Lily could stop her – she had seen the last few moments only. Her shout though drew everyone's attention to her but Hermione just shrugged.

"It's okay, Lily. Sirius was just being kind enough to offer me his candy." Leaving the redhead and all the Marauders gaping at her, she turned towards Sirius. "Thank you very much for your kind gesture; it is very appreciated. I am afraid I am looking to get a lot of reading done before I go to bed tonight, so we'll have to postpone any further chitchat."

Hermione turned back to her book, pretending to ignore everyone. Sirius was still gaping at her before staring at the candy in his hand. The marauders were still not quite sure what was going on and Lily had relaxed and turned back to her friend, realising that no huge disaster had taken place.

Finally, Sirius looked puzzled at the sweets on his hand before taking one of them. He promptly turned into a multi coloured bird that squawked at everyone in outrage when they burst out laughing.

Without even raising her eyes from her book Hermione commented that James should really take his chicken elsewhere. People were trying to study. The bird proceeded to shakily move towards her, feathers raised in anger but he suddenly turned back into himself and just landed on the floor with a loud noise. Pretending to be irritated, Hermione slowly lowered her book to glare at Sirius.

"Really, Sirius, I have just asked you to quiet down so I can study. Please show some respect for your fellow students."

Sirius stared at her wide eyed. She vaguely thought that she'd be his idol as of now, probably. It then dawned on Hermione that she had outpranked the Marauders.

When they congregated in a small group in the corner to 'confer' she realised they'd try something on the girl's dorms over the next couple of days to get back at her. She snorted quietly and wished them good luck. It'd be easier to break into Gringotts.

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That night Hermione was grateful for the silencing ward she had put on her bed via some strategically placed runes.

_They were caught between the alps and more mountains. The sun beat down on them but they had no choice but to continue running. Her current renegades group consisted of a mishmash of people, though mainly muggles and two Russian wizarding head hunters. They had thought they could blend in, in Monaco but the city was surprisingly small and despite the tourists they had found themselves on the run again. Life was odd – everyone knew something weird was happening but no one could pinpoint what and magic was not quite out in the open yet. They were far north of Monaco, their way leading them through the small town called Sospel._

Even here, Hermione was known as Ron's and Harry's friend, so that even though she was so desperately young still the muggles looked at her to lead them and the Russian wizards were helping her deal with it, but ultimately expected her to make the calls as well. So she did and this one she regretted as soon as she set foot in the town. It would have been quaint and small except for the smoke and ruins. The stench had filled her nostrils quickly but it had taken her some time to filter through the horror – burnt flesh. The town was filled with it. The Russians quickly explained to her in their own language – hoping to spare the muggles some of the horror – that this had not been a quick death. They had made fathers turn on their wifes, mothers on their children before burning everyone alive, slowly. And now... now the town was filled with Inferi and the only thing to stop them advancing was to burn these people again. Tears ran down her face as her hand clenched around her wand. Harry and Ron, she reminded herself desperately. I need to find them and for that, I need to get through this.

_So she cast the fire, again and again. With only three wizards to protect 43 people... the odds weren't good. She faltered momentarily – it was only a moment, a moment to breathe, to gather her magic – she couldn't remember. In the end it didn't matter. The inferi grabbed the five year old boy in their group – Timmy – and ripped him apart. Blood sprayed her face as Timmy's face was permanently frozen in fear and terror._

It replayed over and over in her head as she cast the incendio maxima again and again, not allowing herself another pause. She could hear his mother crying and cursing in Italian behind her, but didn't allow herself to think about it. She had to make sure no one else died.

Not here, under her. Not now. Please.

But magic only lasted so long so when the Russians cast her quick glances she realised they needed to start running and hope only few people died. As she yelled for everyone to run, the stared at her in panic before running chaotically the way they came from. The two wizards and the witch sent another few Incendio Maximas at the Inferis before they apparated as one.

Apparating does not take much magic if done over a short distance. And then everyone ran. When they were finally away, they had lost another seven people. Everyone was quiet as she forced them to keep marching throughout the night until they could reach somewhere they could lick their wounds. But it was with desperation that she urged everyone to climb on trees when they'd heard the first howl. Having seen a live werewolf when she was younger she knew and easily recognised the noise. The two Russians were no different. With a momentary understanding exchanged between them they used the rest of their magic to shrink trees around them to a smaller height to allow people to climb them. Then they joined their magics to grow the trees strong and tall so they would be far out of reach – hopefully. They used magic to strengthen the tree trunks and hoped to god that no more would be lost that night.

_They had to stay in their spots for hours, but finally unshrunk the trees. No further lives had been lost, but everyone had heard the growls, howls and scratches. They had all been terrified, thinking they might die any moment. And Hermione knew she had to get the people somewhere far away from her. They had no way to defend themselves. She sighed in relief. The sunlight had risen hours ago but they hadn't quite dared coming down yet._

_But as her feet hit the ground she heard a deep growl from behind her and froze. Turning around she saw that an elderly muggle was closest to the werewolf who had slobber running down its incredibly large muzzle. Fear filled her. The full moon was over, the day had broken and the sun stood high in the sky yet here was a fully transformed werewolf. As it jumped its first, unsuspecting victim she unfroze; but too late to save the old man. He had only a chance to give a pained cry before the Werewolf's bite had killed him. And her curses did nothing but turn its attention on all the live victims again._

Hermione woke up with a scream stuck in her throat and a heavy heart, filled with cries, panic, pain and blood. So much blood...

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Woah, cheery end L Sorry about that. Hope you guys continue enjoying this fanfiction.

Let me know what you think. And I promise more Marauder-interaction soon. Mione just needs to get settled first.


	3. Chapter 3

**Creating your own future**

Chapter 3

This one is dedicated to my latest reviewers – thank you sooo much for taking the time to review, it really encourages me to keep updating quickly: Alessandra.12, piperholly7, LK-HoGwArTs-hEaDgIrL and MissLynn11!

Ooh, did you know that I am spawning followers? 15 people are following this story.

Woohoo! And 375 people have read it! YAY! People from as far away as Australia and New Zealand. This is exciting!

Hermione had known it would come up eventually – in fact, she'd expected it much sooner. But it only seemed right that it should be James who finally asked her. Not a random person, not Remus or Sirius or Lily or anyone else she'd become acquainted with during this time, no – none other than James; the boy who looked so much like Harry it sometimes broke her heart to look at him, the one who had the last name Potter, which still made fear creep into her very bones.

"So, Hermione", James had 'casually' sidled up to her. Now, what he thought of as casually was Remus and Sirius on either side of her and James with Peter across from her. Subtlety and boys did not seem to mix well, be it future or past boys. It was enough to make her pause in her movements, her fork full of bacon and eggs – to fatten her up as well as give her muscles and nutrients according to Jeremy – halted in midair, halfway to her mouth.

"We were wondering what brought you to our pretty castle after all that time travelling abroad? I mean, what made you choose Hogwarts and Britain of all places for your final year." And tact, Hermione thought. James definitely needed to learn some tact – though he did sorely remind her of another boy who had neither subtlety nor tact and it was enough to make her grin slightly. And it caused the usually so well prepared Hermione to say what she thought instead of what she'd prepared to say when the question was finally asked.

"Because everyone's dead." She popped the fork in her mouth, finally, eager to continue on back to the library before her first class as had been her intention before the Marauders had decided to surround her.

Almost passively she noted their reactions – James had smiled slightly at first, as if she had just made a bad joke, but when she reached for her second bite of food his grin had faded and he was starting to pale slightly, looking at his best friends for a hint on how to react next. Remus stared at her, sadness in his eyes as well as compassion, though his face was pale as well whilst Sirius just looked upset and desperate to cheer up – he'd never liked contemplation or sadness, always eager to cheer people up. Peter looked from one of his friends to the other, his entire being expressing that he wanted to be anywhere but here, now that everything had become so uncomfortable. His eyes were filled with pity when they met hers, though Peter flinched and looked away quickly.

With a sigh Hermione addressed the boys again, knowing they were momentarily frozen and unsure how to react.

"You had no way of knowing. It's okay; curiousity is only natural." She noticed vaguely that Peter relaxed slightly but wasn't prepared for his next question, voice piping up before his friends could interfere.

"How did they die?"

Sirius face palmed and was about to tell her not to bother with him or something of the sort, but Hermione answered anyway. This time, she addressed Peter directly, her eyes fastening on his to make sure he was listening.

"I hope they died bloody and fighting." Remus coughed at this and James stared at her in shock. For some reason it was only Sirius who seemed to understand what she was saying – the young black heir had been the last one she'd expected to catch onto the meaning of what she was saying, brash and young as he was before his prolonged stay at Azkaban.

For their benefit, she decided to elaborate again, eyes still solely on Peter only noticing the other's reaction in her peripheral vision. "Because it means it wasn't someone they knew betraying them, because it means they were not tortured for hours if not days before their deaths and because it means that they still had hope and were not broken yet." Like me, she silently added.

"You must have some enemies", Sirius said, eyes only slightly widened, whilst the others still stared on in shock. Hermione gave him a bitter smile at his words, whilst she grabbed her backpack to move to her first class – the time to go to the library now well and truly gone.

"Only the ones that are everyone's enemies but a select few. Winston Churchill once said that having enemies is a good thing. It means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." She left the boys in stunned silence, contemplating everything she had told them.

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They didn't come back to reality until Lily gave James a head slap.

"James! You're the headboy and you are going to be late for your classes! You have to obey the rules – at least for the first week, god knows you couldn't stand it any longer than that." James turned around, noticed Lily in all her fiery glory, hands on hips, hair floating around her in a display of furious magic. Normally he'd make a joke, come onto Lily or a combination of the two. All he could do this time was grab his bag and mechanically walk to his class, where he proceeded to sit down somewhere randomly, unsure what to think and what was the right thing to do now. He'd left a very puzzled and confused Lily behind in the Great Hall, not sure if she missed him permanently either asking her out or complimenting her. A moment later she shrieked, realising that for all her chastising of James it would now be her that was late. The redhead left the Great Hall in such a hurry she never noticed Peter, Remus and Sirius having left her, though she would undoubtedly remember later and have her revenge. If she wanted to, she was just as devious as the Marauders, only with a lot more talent in inventing new potions.

Transfiguration was usually one of James' favourite classes – very simply because he was the best at it. He had always had a special talent for Transfiguration; it had come easier to him than any other magic because it made sense. But today, everything seemed confusing.

The new girl, Hermione Winchester, had already turned their group upside down in the short time she'd been there and nothing had really happened. She had the reflexes from hell which even Remus confessed he couldn't even quite follow with his eyes, she was wary and she was an incredible prankster – the marauders still hadn't figured out her trick with the candy! And now she told them they were dead. But who was they? Her Parents? Both of them? Her friends? Grandparents? And what did she mean that she wanted them to go down fighting, die bloody. Wasn't that a horrible way to die? Yeah, he was a Gryffindor and he could definitely see the glory in going down fighting rather than cowering in a corner, hiding – but it still seemed so harsh, so cold. And then he finally realised what it was that was truly bothering him about her – the sheer lack of emotion. There were no tears – she was a girl, damnit, weren't they meant to cry at every opportunity? She had just seemed to be reciting facts as though she was reading from a book rather than people she knew. The new girl didn't care if her parents or the people on the other side of the country died. He bet it would have the same effect on her. Finally, he could go back to concentrating on the Professor. Him and the others would decide later what to do about such a cold, cruel girl. She definitely fitted better into Slytherin. Maybe they should show her that? Hmm...

With that James fixed his attention on the slug in front of him that he was meant to transfigure into a hedgehog. He thinks, anyway. Maybe it was meant to be lion. Or a rhinoceros. Or a Gryffin – now that would be cool! Thoroughly distracted, James decided to try all of them, one after the other of course! Now a mix between these would be truly frightening to contemplate.

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Peter didn't know what to make of the new girl. She continuously confused his mates and that made him very unhappy. Peter didn't really like the limelight; he much preferred to follow other people's direction – the praise of the few that mattered to the praise of everyone. But now, this new girl had made the Marauders uncertain – their pranks didn't work, simple hugs meant you lost your wand and had hers against your neck and now this sob-story about people dying. None of these facts made her very trustworthy in Peter's eyes and made him only more certain he needed to protect his mates from this girl. She had looked into his eyes head on, issued only him a challenge and allowed only him to see the cold, hard anger in her eyes. He would not let her any closer to his best friends, whatever she was up to, he was certain it wasn't good. And her skills seemed to be able to even top those of Remus close to a full moon, so he needed to make sure they were out of her target line. His friends first – let someone else deal with her.

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Sirius sighed. This new girl was sure as hell confusing him. His grandfather, Arcturus, had told him something similar once about the first war. He'd told him that a man should be judged by the enemies they'd made (Franklin Roosevelt), and that only would be a true measure of a man. He had not understood that as a six-year-old but over the years kept thinking back on it. Though now this slip of a girl was saying something similar to a war veteran and it just didn't sit right with him. He'd known intuitively what she meant just as he had known his friends did not.

Now he wasn't sure what he should do. Her eyes had held the same bleak expression his granddad's had when he'd asked him about the war, the same intense sadness; but there was no war going on! There were disappearances and some attacks, but no war. So why had her family been killed? And how had she escaped? Had she chosen Hogwarts because of Dumbledore? Because she thought he could protect her? Nothing made sense. Sirius rubbed his forehead. She had insane reflexes and he'd noticed that she'd only been a moment away from cursing James – her reflexes were to kill, not to defend and wait; shoot first, ask questions later. That was more than what you learned solely for defensive purposes, which would mean she'd been involved in fights somewhere – but what parent would let their sixteen year old girl join in fights? Even his parents would keep him out of it until he was off age. Sirius groaned out loud, his head was hurting.

"Mr. Black, was there something you wanted to contribute to the discussion at hand?" Professor McGonagall suddenly appeared in front of him, a stern expression covering her face and her lips set in a straight line. She was obviously not very happy with him not paying attention during Newts.

Almost unwillingly, Sirius' eyes found Hermione momentarily. She only had her eyebrows raised at him, but he was certain she knew what him and his friends were contemplating. With a quick movement he turned back to their Transfiguration teacher, a charming smile on his face.

"But Minnie, I was just wondering when we'd tell the entire school about our affair – I think they have a right to know about our passionate-" Sirius was all charm, an innocuous expression on his face, eyes wide and innocent, fluttering his eyelashes slightly as he stared at her in a faux-lovestruck manner. The entire class had broken into laughter and giggles before he'd even finished half a sentence, but Sirius pretended to be unperturbed until Professor McGonagall stopped him mid-sentence.

"Mr. Black, detention after classes tonight!" There was a furious expression on her face, her lips twisted and her face white except for the slight blush on her cheeks.

"If you wanted me alone with you Minnie, you need to only ask. There is no need for these false detentions you keep assigning me –everyone knows we're in loooovve" Everyone and their kneazle knew that McGonagall assigned the marauders detention very, very frequently. There was hardly a week without detentions. Though this time he thought he may have pushed her too far. Her eyes narrowed in on him and a smirk was now on his Professors lips – and damn, if that wasn't unnerving.

"Your detention, Mr. Black, will be with Mr. Filch. And I believe you will be having tonight as well as Saturday with him. Would you like to increase the amount of that further, Mr. Black?" At his horrified, mute nod, she continued. "I didn't think so. Now, everyone: back to your slugs. I don't see enough hedgehogs around here yet."

Sirius eyes almost unwillingly found themselves drawn to the new girl in their classes. She was still giggling quietly, a slight flush covering her cheeks and eyes alit with laughter. And for a moment he felt as though maybe it was worth getting detention on a Saturday with Filch of all people, though his brain was quick to get him back onto the horror that was Filch, the squib who worked at the castle and seemed to hate all magic and all teenagers, never mind the two combined.

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Remus wasn't sure what to think of Hermione. The wolf in him was scared of her – it kept barking and growling and warning her off coming too close to it. Unfortunately, that in turn made Remus only want to be closer to her as he had never had his inner "furry" Moony afraid of anyone or anything, not even Dumbledore. He hadn't even told his friends yet, unsure of what it could mean – he'd researched but no one was sure what wolves were afraid off, except that if you gave off a more "Alpha" male vibe, they tended to be more compliant and do as you asked; though the Alpha male tended to be another Wolf Animagus or another Werewolf. Could a girl even have an Alpha male vibe? But the Wolf wanted to be anything but follow her – it wanted to run in the opposite direction of her. What the hell could that possibly mean?

All Remus knew was that the new girl intrigued him. She made the wolf want to cower in a corner and that was thought to be impossible. He vaguely wondered if he would ever get the chance to find out.

He still remembered when she'd attacked James – he hadn't been able to even sense the shift in her from relaxed posture going to fighting and she'd had James – James of all people, who was Quidditch captain and had by no means slow reflexes – down on the ground, wand far away from him. He'd also noticed how she had positioned herself perfectly for being able to fight off all of them if need be. The full moon had only been 3 days prior, so his eyes were still very visually acute and yet he had not seen her move – she'd been sitting calmly on the couch one moment, the next James was face down with her on his back. He didn't know what to make of that, though his wolf seemed to be very frightened at that particular moment as if it knew it stood no chance against her. But none of it made sense! He was a werewolf with superior strength, sense of smell, sight and supposedly superior reflexes. She was a girl with admittedly a lot of secrets, but a girl nonetheless. Remus would have said he could take her without his superior abilities if it weren't for her grip on James. Everything was so confusing and his wolf was no help, prowling around in his mind as if to walk off excess energy.

Before the year began he would have laughed at anyone saying that anything could frighten another werewolf except for another, stronger werewolf. And now, with barely four days into the year everything stood on its head already.

Hermione had managed to trick the boys – she had accepted their candy, not transformed and caused Sirius to take one himself. She hadn't even seemed to realise what she was doing except for the tiny glint in her eyes betraying her. The bushy haired girl had tricked the tricksters which only Lily had managed so far. She talked about war as though she'd lived through it, eyes sad and shoulders heavy and her reflexes and instincts seemed to support that theory, but he knew of no war taking place. But as she'd admitted to travelling far abroad she may have been involved in another country's war – which would also explain the muggle holding grip she'd had on James rather than blasting him away first.

Hermione quoting famous muggles and her last name was Winchester. Not a wizarding name that he'd ever hear off, so at the very least she was on their side in the looming war. And that thought encouraged him, having seen her reflexes, though he also wondered if she would ever want to be involved in anything similar to a war again as she'd intimated it was what killed her family. Maybe she would just stand on the sidelines or leave the country. Remus wasn't sure how he felt about either of these thoughts; on the one hand he would feel heartened, fighting with her at his side, protecting friends and loved ones but on the other hand his inner chauvinist wanted her to be safe and sound at home or on the other side of the planet, unharmed.

There was an unassuming beauty about her – she was not one of the girls who had the looks of a model or anything like that; instead she seemed more like a strong, wholesome person and it shone out of her very pores – confidence, strength, belief, hope – she had a fire inside her and it drew people to her. Her hair was curly and bushy, mainly maroon with hues of mahogany shining through, her eyes the colour of chocolate and her smile seemed to express so many different emotions at any given time. And Remus found himself drawn to Hermione, wanting to be around her and hoping that she would handle him being a werewolf with the same acceptance as his friends had.

And yet he knew nothing about her - it was only a couple of days ago that he'd seen her for the first time. He wondered if he should be worried, but part of him felt just right at placing all his trust in her already.

He shook off his thoughts – it made no sense to keep going in loops around this until he had enough data to come to a sensible conclusion. That meant waiting and Remus found himself strangely excited at the prospect, curious as to what this girl would do or say next. She seemed to be shaking up their world and turning everything they knew and believed in on its head without even realising she was doing so, but Remus found he didn't mind. Something told him that things were changing – whether for good or worse would yet have to be determined.

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Hermione had heard of the Marauders even in her own time. Minerva had regaled them with tales of their escapades with a fond smile and now she'd seen Sirius in class and he'd made her laugh. It had never occurred to either her or either of her boys to disrespect the teachers – except DADA and Snape – in such a fashion. They'd had her respect whether they earned it or not but having Sirius talk about his romantic love affair with the strictest professor at school had even made her laugh out loud and it had been a long time since someone had managed to surprise a laugh out of her.

With that in mind she made a bird out of a piece of paper and flew it over to Remus with a flick of her wrist and a murmured charm, knowing he'd be the most sensible about it. She found his curious eyes on her for the rest of the class. It only had one sentence on it. 'You might want to attend dinner for another laugh'.

Classes that day seemed to pass quickly, though it was announced the DADA teacher and magical creatures teacher were working on a joint maze that the 5th and 7th years would have to go through on Friday. Hermione made sure to activate her latent charm on the boys who had been stupid enough to try and assault her before dinner, before sitting down on her seat and enjoying her food.

The Marauders were intensely curious by the time dinner came around and stared at her as well as at everyone around them, wondering what would happen.

As a 7th year Ravenclaw sat down the doors of the Great Hall shut themselves with a resounding noise. Everyone paused, now well used to the Marauders antics and wondering what would happen now. No one expected what came next

The Marauders noticed the grin on Hermione's face, before it disappeared as quickly as it had come as one Ravenclaw and three Slytherins made their way to the middle of the hall – Dumbledore's eyes twinkled as he put a calming hand on this deputy's forearm to stop her from interfering. Suddenly girls stood up – most of the Gryffindor girls, though only one of the first years, nearly all of the Hufflepuffs, half the Ravenclaw and a couple of Slytherin girls. All of them walked in front of the four boys boys, before they began to sing.

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As one, their voices lifted, eyes fixed on the four boys. Hermione was astounded, as she sang, at the amount of girls surrounding her. The spell would have only taken to girls that had been bullied by these particular set of boys.

"I remember like it was yesterday  
Just another third grade school yard basketball game  
All the boys they told me it was no girls allowed  
So I took the ball away and said if you wanna play come get it now

There's a Michael, a Stephen, a Johnny and James  
On a long, long list of all the butts kicked and I'm still taking names  
Don't fight it, deny it, let it ruin your world  
You just got beat by a girl

Battle of the bands at the starlight saloon  
Nothing but wanna be rock stars singing outta tune  
All the boys didn't wanna share the stage with me  
Til I got that whole crown screaming and up on their feet

There's a Michael, a Stephen, a Johnny and James  
On a long, long list of all the butts kicked and I'm still taking names  
Don't fight it, deny it, let it ruin your world  
You just got beat by a girl

So ladies let me hear ya if you're with me now  
Cuz that list is gonna keep growin' til they figure out"

At this moment the rest of the girls involuntarily stood up and joined in.

"There's a Michael, a Stephen, a Johnny and James  
On a long, long list of all the butts kicked and I'm still taking names  
Don't fight it, deny it, let it ruin your world  
You just got beat by a girl."

The Marauders went first, wolf-whistling and cheering before a couple of Muggleborns grinned and yelled for an "Encore!". With barely a moment to contemplate it, Hermione thought of what she'd been wanting to say to these boys all this time, but hadn't been able to due to not wanting to stand out... too much. So she waved her wand and the music started back up, the girls looking at each other with grins as the lyrics to the chorus of this particular song appeared in their heads. As one they turned to the boys, confident, smirking and advancing on them.

"Let me tell you how it'd be  
You won't get with this you see  
'Cause you can't handle me

It's a simple fact  
That you can't seem to handle me  
No matter how you act with them  
You can't handle me  
It's just a simple fact  
That you can't seem to handle me  
No matter how you act with them  
You can't handle me  
You gotta make me feel you got my back  
But you're a selfish  
Narcissistic psycho-freaking  
Boot-licking Nazi pimp and  
You can't handle me"

There was only a silence as some of the girls flushed and quietly shuffled back to their seats, though most were also now standing a bit taller in front of their bullies, glaring at them and that was enough for Hermione to count this as a victory.

Hermione sat down, thinking she hadn't particularly liked the singer of the first or second song – Ayla Brown and Robyn – but thought its message was too good to pass up on. The second one –with the bootlicking comment – had just been too funny and satisfying.

Now however, she focused back on the four boys, who had turned towards the teachers table once the last girl had reclaimed her seat. The Ravenclaw was first – or Dumbest as she had nicknamed him.

"My name is Andrew, I am a Seventh year Ravenclaw student and I have bullied all of the girls who just stood up to me. They are mudbloods and I have commanded them to do several demeaning tasks, including licking boots, doing my homework etc."

Eli, Samuel and Blake gave similar statements, but Hermione was wondering how it had slipped her attention that one of them was a Ravenclaw rather than a Slytherin. Of course you could simply charm your tie and house colours, but she should have been aware of the charm on it, at the very least. Frowning slightly, she wondered how she could have missed it, but her thoughts were interrupted, when all four boys addressed the headmaster.

"Professor Dumbledore, we think we should be punished severely for these crimes and taught to accept muggleborns as our equals."

The aforementioned Headmaster had lost the twinkle in his eyes as he had listened to the boys' confessions; his shoulders drooped with weight at what had been done in his school, under his watch. Hermione sincerely hoped that Dumbledore would be doing the right thing this time. When he still seemed to think of how to proceed, she frowned, eyes narrowing. She glanced at the Marauders. The psychological benefits are quite evident when people sing together due to the increased sense of community, belonging and shared endeavour. With a quick look around her she whispered to Remus, Sirius, Peter and James.

"What would you think of another song?" Their answering grin and palpable excitement was answer enough. "Right" She muttered. "This one will be a bit cruder as Dumbledore's not getting the message." She swished her wand under the table, pointing at the floor. Instantly every student stood up.

"Look inside  
Look inside your tiny mind  
Now look a bit harder  
'Cause we're so uninspired, so sick and tired of all the hatred you harbor

So you say  
It's not okay to be gay  
Well I think you're just evil  
You're just some racist who can't tie my laces  
Your point of view is medieval

Fuck you  
Fuck you very, very much  
'Cause we hate what you do  
And we hate your whole crew  
So please don't stay in touch

Fuck you  
Fuck you very, very much  
'Cause your words don't translate  
And it's getting quite late  
So please don't stay in touch

Do you get  
Do you get a little kick out of being slow-minded?  
You want to be like your father  
It's approval you're after  
Well that's not how you find it

Do you  
Do you really enjoy living a life that's so hateful?  
'Cause there's a hole where your soul should be  
You're losing control of it and it's really distasteful

Fuck you  
Fuck you very, very much  
'Cause we hate what you do  
And we hate your whole crew  
So please don't stay in touch

Fuck you  
Fuck you very, very much  
'Cause your words don't translate and it's getting quite late  
So please don't stay in touch

Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you,  
Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you,  
Fuck you

You say, you think we need to go to war  
Well you're already in one,  
'Cause its people like you  
That need to get slew  
No one wants your opinion

Fuck you  
Fuck you very, very much  
'Cause we hate what you do  
And we hate your whole crew  
So please don't stay in touch

Fuck you  
Fuck you very, very much  
'Cause your words don't translate and it's getting quite late  
So please don't stay in touch

Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you  
Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!"

Thank you, Lily Allen for verbalising everything, she thought to herself. Hermione sighed and hoped Dumbledore would finally get the hint. And luckily, it would seem he did.

"I think I may have upset our secret prankster by not taking action quickly enough." His eye twinkled again slightly. "Please note that the heads of houses and myself will be having a conference and we will let everyone know our final decision by breakfast. Professor Flitwick, if you'd please be so kind as to put these boys into separate rooms for the evening and ensure they cannot leave."

The diminutive half-professor stood up, eyes hard. Even Hermione swallowed slightly – Flitwick had become very well known for his duelling technique and his no mercy attitude in the war. It seemed he hadn't changed much.

"It would be my pleasure, Albus." With that he left the Great Hall, the boys floating in mid air behind him, mouths shut.

"I do believe that this evening's prankster shall not receive any punishment. Instead I think a commendation is in order and 50 points for ingenious spell work and sound judgement. Please note in future however that we frown on this type of language."

Everyone noticed that 50 points had been added to Gryffindor and wondered who the mysterious wizard or witch had been.

Meanwhile the Marauders stared at her in awe. She'd not only gotten away scot-free, she'd actually earned points for pulling off a prank.

Winking at them, Hermione mingled with the other students leaving the Great Hall who were all excitedly chatting about what had taken place.

She hoped that Dumbledore would not let them off with a slap on the wrist. Besides uniting the school, she had intended this as a kind of test for Dumbledore. She only hoped he'd pass as she needed to know if she could rely on him or not. Albus was a good man to have in your corner, if you could. Unfortunately, he liked to give too many chances to people who did nothing to deserve them and trusted too much. Plus he thought all children were innocent and as the headmaster of a school whose students were being recruited as death eaters, i.e. murderers and torturers this was not the best trait to have. Hopefully this had given him a wakeup call.

Hermione took the moment to escape from the group and to seclude herself in the library with homework and new books she hadn't had a chance to read yet.

It was well past midnight before she managed to return to her dorm, tiredly activating the charms around her bed as she slipped into her pyjamas. She was just happy that the teachers still seemed tied up so she didn't have to avoid anyone as she snuck around the empty corridors.

Within seconds she was asleep.

_"Aiden?" The young man with the wide grin turned to her, all charm. His brown eyes glittered in the dark light with sadness but also with humour. His little sister had just been killed in a blitz attack two months ago. He still woke up screaming sometimes and though no one begrudged him it meant they had to be on the move constantly._

"Hey, princess. How are you?"

Hermione rolled her eyes good-naturedly. Aiden was a natural flirt and after he'd slept with her the first time it had only increased his flirting instead of the opposite. She'd become used to it very quickly, enjoying the flattery.

"Hey yourself." The constant running was causing her body to become fitter than ever as busses and cars were to obvious; trains and planes were attacked to frequently so they lived in wilderness and ran, only occasionally stealing cars where they could. Brooms were entirely out of the question as there were now spells covering the entirety of Europe to monitor this mode of transport.

Aiden kept up with her seemingly effortlessly. She turned to him slightly as she queried.

"Anything on my boys?" It seemed her standard answer when asked how she was. Everyone knew that 'her boys' were Harry and Ron. Aiden's grin grew more sympathetic.

"The lead in Russia turned out to be false. Sorry, Mione." She nodded at him, not having expected anything else. There had been too many false leads for her to have much hope anymore, though part of her claimed that simply meant they were much better at hiding. She had been found a great many of times, though most of those had been accidental. Part of her wondered if maybe Harry had transferred his bad luck onto her somehow.

She ignored his apology and blurted out "Would you join me again tonight?"A slight blush covered her cheeks.

She had her first time with Aiden, she loved him in many ways and enjoyed their nights together. They tended to involve pretend date nights under candle light, soft chats about what their life had been like before and about silly things like hobbies or funny anecdotes about accidental magic. No talk about lost ones, strategy, death or anything. It was inconsequential chatter but it had brought her relief and momentary happiness to pretend that nothing was wrong. Aiden was her rock when the world was determined to be brought to its knees around her, when everything was falling apart and all hope seemed lost, she'd turn to him. And she did the same for him. It was mutually shared sadness, desperation, hopes and loss and it kept saving her and him from faltering when it seemed all too much.

And somewhere along the way she'd fallen for him. She knew she shouldn't; war wasn't exactly the ideal place for such romanticism and feelings. But he was all charm and he provided her with the emotional outlet she'd been so desperate for. Aiden was a gentle and loving man, a passionate and exciting lover and his intelligence was more than a match for hers.

"I would love to." His eyes were soft as he regarded her, though she vaguely noticed the tenseness in his shoulders and neck. She disregarded it, though in retrospect she shouldn't have.

They ran all day. By the time night fell again, her legs felt like jelly and her head was swimming. She'd been with the commanders, arguing strategies – safe houses, attack plans, other groups, travel direction etc. Then she had been chatting to people, encouraging them, giving them hope and the will to fight and keep fighting. She was known everywhere as Ron's and Harry's companion and thus was put in charge of whichever group she happened to be travelling with at the time. They'd started calling her Light's princess but she only knew that she had no more to give; she was utterly exhausted. By the end of it she just wanted to curl up with Aiden and enjoy their night together – it had been over a week since their last time.

Just as every time before they chatted as they shared their small meal, determined to ignore the hunger settling in even after having finished the meagre portions.

"I saved a bird once."

Aiden raised his eyebrows. "You did?"

"Yep. I found it, just lying on the street. Its wing had been partially detached. Before my mum could stop me, I was cradling it in my hands and cried. No, I sobbed – really ugly, snot running, eyes running, it wasn't pretty." She gave Aiden a self-deprecating smirk as he chuckled. He'd seen her in that state more than once. "But I just wanted to help so badly I guess it just..." She shrugged, still not sure how it had happened. "I could just feel the magic being pulled from me into the small robin. And then I must have blacked out for a minute but the next moment my mum is beside me staring at the robin in my hand – the fully healed robin, I should say."

Hermione grinned slightly. "I swear to this day that the robin was saying thank you before it flew away. Anyway, from then on my mum knew I was – well, different. We were more science-orientated family, you understand, so none of this magic-mumbo jumbo. But after three years it was a relief to have Minerva turn up on our doorstep and introduce us to magic."

Aiden laughed as he hugged her and kissed the top of her head. Hermione snuggled into his arms, looking up at him. She knew that any night could be either his or her own last night being alive. Forcefully she shoved that thought aside and leaned up to kiss him.

That night Aiden was a particularly intense lover, he explored her body as if he was trying to memorise it and pleasured her until she was just a relaxed muscle mass below him, endorphins rushing through her system. When they finally joined she felt as though she could have reached for the stars. Pleasure flowed through entire system and erased anything else until there was only him and her.

She snuggled into Aiden, glad that he was a very cuddly and hugging lover after they had made love again.

"I love you" Her eyes glittered as she looked at him, hoping he'd reciprocate. The words had come out of her mouth unbidden but she didn't regret saying them. It had felt right.

Aiden's smile was uncharacteristically sad, his eyes filled with unshed tears as he softly replied.

_"I love you, too, Hermione." _

_The warmth that flooded her heart felt real and her lips curved into smile without her permission as she hugged him again._

It made what followed only seem more unreal. It was the screams that first jerked her back into awareness. With a spell her clothes were on her and her weapons concealed on her body. She ran out of the tent, noticing that Aiden had probably already joined the fight, as she defended the innocents they were protecting.

She found herself surrounded by five death eaters after only a short moment. Ducking underneath the two spells shot at her, she threw the knife that was concealed in a holster on her left arm at the man standing to the left of her whilst simultaneously using her right to shoot a confusion spell at the man in front. Weaving in between the three spells now shot at her she called the knife back, appeared behind the female deatheater and slit her throat whilst simultaneously using her body as a shield against the other two spells shot at her. The body crumpled to the ground and she took the moment to use the Depulso on the two remaining death eaters, before severing their body.

Joining Archer, she fought back to back with one of her officers.

"Do you know how they found us?"

"No."

She nodded. The traitor would have to be found later. Hermione had noticed a family in distress a couple of yards away, so she made Archer aware of where she was headed before leaving. Half-way there she was dragged in between two tents – her wand was at Aiden's neck before she knew what she was doing.

_"Aiden? What are you doing?" She dropped her wand, confused. Aiden was one of their best fighters, why was he pulling her to the side – that family needed her help._

"Hermione, please listen to me." The young man looked so desperate, so upset. She'd rarely seen him in this state, so she just nodded slightly, keeping an ear out for any death eaters approaching them.

"I have talked to them and they- they will allow you in their midst and promised your family and friends to go free. Please, this could all stop! Join me, Hermione. You know I love you."

It was then it dawned on her. They didn't need to look for the traitor – he was confessing to her this very moment already. Aiden, sweet Aiden, had betrayed them all. He was the reason for the cries of pain and panic all around her.

"Aiden, you- Are you saying you're working for Vol- the Dark Lord?" Hermione tried shoving her emotions away, but her head was running amok. Thoughts and feelings, nothing she could control anymore. She had slept with Aiden – the man who had lost his little sister and he'd been so protective of her. The man who held her at night, consoled her when she cried and made sweet love to her. How could he now be a murderer and torturer? How could he suddenly work for the enemy? How could he still say he loved her.

Tears were running down her face, as she stared at the equally tear-stained face of her lover and confidante.

"I am doing it for you, Hermione. I am doing it because of you! We can't save all this anymore. But maybe we can create a new world, Hermione. And you'll have all those you love around you. Harry will be the only exception, but you'll have me instead. I'll help you through it. We could have equal rights for creatures and we wouldn't have muggles interacting with us at all or anything but you won't miss it, I'll make sure of it." Promises, delusions, fantasies. Hopelessness flooded through her as the screams kept echoing in her ears and her head.

"Aiden" One last desperate try, one try before she had to ... One last try, it was all the time she could allow them. "If I asked you to, would you swear and Unbreakable vow to come back to our side, to never betray any secrets again?"

He shook his head. "Don't you see, Mione, it all works. We can be done with the fighting; I know how much you hate this!" He was passionate, just as passionate as he'd been last night. But there was no more time. No time!

_"Aiden, love. I wish, I wish I could make you see what I know. It will never stop, not before Voldemort and his ideology is dead. It won't stop, there will be more death, more dead siblings and dead parents, more people tortured for no reason. Joining him will not resolve anything. Betraying people is not the way forward. I- Part of me wished you'd confided in me before now. Maybe you could've been saved. Maybe we still would be fighting years from now, but we could've been together."_

Hermione had felt the happiness and love from only hours earlier drain from heart, everything felt so bleak and hopeless. She held his right cheek as she pulled herself up on her toes to kiss him, desperate, hot tears running down her face. She had really thought that they could've been together forever. Just like the Golden trio – friends forever, together forever. But it never seemed to happen that way.

_She released him and didn't even give him enough time to grab his wand before she had stuck her knife in his chest. She saw him choking, blood coming out of his mouth, wide disbelieving eyes focused on her. But she only allowed him another glance before she pulled her knife out, his body giving another gurgle of mixed blood and pain as he sank to his knees._

"I am so sorry." She put her hand in his blood, painted a rune on the ground and activated it with her wand. This particular spell was for betrayed loved ones – it was dark arts as you needed to kill the one you loved with a knife to the heart. But it did allow any of his compatriots to be permanently ejected from the area. No death eater would survive being within a kilometre of the place of Aiden's death.

_And just like that suddenly everything calmed down around her, no more screaming, only hushed moans of pain and cries of loss. The traitor had given his life to save the ones he'd betrayed, it was oddly poetic. Yet she still could only stare at Aiden's calm face and wipe away the blood on his chin from when he'd coughed blood. Her lover and her friend was dead. She saw no trace of the man from the last hour, could only remember the laughter, tears and passion they'd shared. The hopes and dreams they had held together. Hermione couldn't understand how he'd given up on her, on them, but it had broken something inside her to have to kill him._

Her heart felt so desperately empty, gaping open and bleeding as if there was a permanent hole where Aiden had been, where her hope had been, yet everything inside her still wanted to love this man, love the man she'd spent countless hours with and cry for his loss. He'd been the one to put her back together after a couple of particularly vicious attacks. It only seemed fitting that he'd be the one to break her again.

Slowly she released the body, wiped away the tears and became Hermione, Light's princess, Commander of the red force. She needed to check who had survived and who had not, how many of her men were still with her and how many she'd lost because she'd placed her trust in the wrong man. So she stepped out from between the tents and joined the general chaos. Once she'd assured Archer they'd be safe here for the day she joined the others in healing anyone who'd been injured. 

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My original intention was to have the bad guys sing humiliating songs, but I couldn't find any that seemed to fit. But then I stumbled upon those two, so there you go. I was just reading about the studies done in singing together, hence inspiration hit J hope you like it.

Please leave me more reviews and tell me what you think!

K8-Amelia, hopefully you're still reading this. Tell me what you think or if there is anything else that could be done to improve.

Would anyone like to be a beta for this? I keep noticing mistakes as I go over the chapters again and I can only think how annoying that'd be to read. Any volunteers?


	4. Chapter 4

**Creating your own future**

Chapter 4 – Changes

Yay – three reviewers! This chapter is dedicated to you guys – thank you so much!

LK-HoGwArTs-hEaDgIrL  
MissLynn11  
Proudbooklover

Hermione shot up in her bed, hand clutching her heart. It had been a long time since she'd dreamt of the moment she found out Aiden had been betraying her behind her back. Her hand automatically went to her watch and with a whispered password a portrait of Aiden and another one of Ron and Harry were revealed beneath it. Aiden should've known at the very least that she'd never give up on her boys, would never allow one of them to be killed as long as she still drew breath. But then, hope made people do desperate things as did a lack thereof. Her fingers slowly drew over Aidens' face, trying to memorise this instead of the cold, lifeless expression she'd last seen on it.

With a snap she shut the watch again, watched it going back to looking like any ordinary watch. It had been a gift from Dumbledore upon her 'graduation' as a war mage.

Today was Saturday. Next week Friday she would be going through a maze for DADA. She wondered if they'd have dragons.

As it was only 3.30 a.m. she wandered the empty corridors after she'd cleaned up. Up on the sixth floor she noticed Albus' magic approaching her. He'd always been particularly noticeable as his magic hovered around him like a second cloak.

"Ah, Ms. Winchester, what a surprise to meet you here this early in the morning." Blue eyes twinkled down at her.

"Professor Dumbledore, pleasure to meet you." She looked at his eccentric robes, now a calm ocean blue with crabs, dolphins and all sorts of other wild life appearing at random. It was rather distracting.

"May I compliment you on your robes? It's rather interesting spell work." At her words Professor Dumbledore seemed to light up slightly, displaying his robes with a swish.

"Unfortunately, my dear, you are one of the few to think so. Most don't like the colourfulness, I believe."

Hermione laughed. "I think that you can never have enough colour in your life, sir."

Albus smiled back, delighted at this new student. "Quite right, Ms. Winchester, quite right. Now, I feel I must ask what brings you up here at this time in the morning?" He looked at her seriously and she noticed he kept squinting slightly. With a short nod she realised he must be noticing that something was slightly array with her – the charm that kept her features as she remembered being at that age was obviously not quite up to close inspection by the Albus Dumbledore.

"Couldn't sleep any more." She shrugged. "If you are not too busy, Professor, I will be enjoying a hot chocolate in the kitchens and wouldn't mind some company."

After only two weeks in this time she missed being able to have intelligent conversations with an adult and she'd missed the eccentricity of this man in particular for over two years now.

"Ah, how could I ever say no when a fine lady asks me to enjoy my favourite beverage." He held out his arm and she took it with a smile and a barely suppressed shudder. "Are you alright my dear? Cold?" His wand was pointed at her and he was set to do a warming charm.

However Hermione had escaped him and had taken several steps back, face pale. "Professor, would you mind putting away your wand again – I'd rather not have it pointed at me." She'd suppressed her instincts, the moment she'd heard what he was saying but still had felt the need to put space between them.

Albus looked at her, momentarily puzzled, before apologising and putting his wand in its holster again.

"You have my apologies, my dear. I never meant to cause you any grief." In her entrance interview she'd had to tell them that her family had been murdered. It seemed late nights and lack of sleep could get even the unflappable Albus Dumbledore to not have perfect recall.

As he held his arm out again, she hesitantly took it and they made their way towards the kitchen.

"House elves are such incredible creatures, my dear, aren't they? They have helped us for centuries and never demand anything in return." Albus said as they entered the kitchens.

Hermione nodded, smiling at him. Tibby appeared in front of her and Hermione automatically found that she was sinking to her knees to be at eye height with the elf.

"Tibby, could I ask you for some hot chocolate and whatever snacks you have available?"

The elf nodded seriously. "Me's would be pleased, Miss." With that Tibby popped away to gather things whilst she sat down next to Albus, who'd watched the procedure with raised eyebrows.

"Not even a week here for a week and you already know the names of the house elves. Can I safely presume that this is not a singular incident of lack of sleep?" His eyes looked at her with concern, though she could see that she'd gained more respect from him now that he'd seen her interact with the house elves.

"Let's just say that if I were to be asked directly I would neither deny nor confirm that assumption."

Albus grinned momentarily at her words, before concern took over again.

"Then I would say that if someone should find themselves in such a state of lack of sleep they might find it useful to know that Miss Pomfrey is able to supply Dreamless sleeping potions to people in need of it – with the authorisation of the headmaster. With circumstances such as this one – if it were the case – I would agree, of course."

"Of course." She nodded. "However as it is neither the case nor would such a potion be particularly beneficial if it were. To me at least. Though I thank you for the potential offer, sir."

Tibby popped up next to them and offered them their hot chocolates along with a range of fruits and meats as snacks, though Hermione would've been more inclined to classify them as main courses. After thanking the elf and taking a moment to pick out a nice melon slice, she turned to the head master again.

"I happened to meet a house elf called Jeremy one of the other times. I was rather curious if you knew why or how he came to speak so well? The other elves all have issues with grammar, tenses and some words."

Albus nodded, looking intrigued. "Indeed. Jeremy is rather special in that he came here after my late friend passed on. From what I have been able to figure out his fathers' last years were especially lonely and he'd been chatting to the elf non-stop for days as he was his only companion. Jeremy was rather young at the time. When he grew older he simply talked as his master had talked to him beforehand. I'd be rather interested in your point of view on this, though, if you don't mind."

Hermione took a sip of her hot chocolate, facts and studies whirring through her head at lightning speed. With a decisive nod, she decided to share her thoughts.

"I don't know how much you have kept up with muggles, sir, but there have been several studies into the development and learning process of babies and children – in this case I'll presume that they are not much different to humans. If babies or small children are exposed to different languages they will be able to imitate the sounds later in life. The problem adults often find when asked to learn a foreign language is that the ear literally will not pick up sounds that are made by the foreign speaker by either omitting them entirely or making them sound like something they are used to. A baby also picks up its mother tongue in the womb already and after being born mainly from the mother at first. Since house elves are sent to work right after giving birth and most people don't interact with their elves I would presume that's at least partly where their language inhibition come from. As for the grammar – our parents would encourage us to speak correctly, correcting sentences as necessary when we are younger. If that never happens, it gets absorbed in their heads as the correct way to say things for a house elf. They may even be of the opinion that house elves should be talking differently to their masters and mistresses." Hermione had become increasingly furious with the imaginary master of house elves she'd created in her head so that she was now standing instead of sitting and had hit the table in her anger.

Then Albus started laughing whole heartedly and she sat down in her seat again, blushing. She hadn't meant to burst out like that but house elves had been the first race she'd been quite aware of that were mistreated – werewolves were different as they were still treated normally until the other people found out. A house elf didn't even have that. Looking up she noticed that the house elves around her had stopped her work at some point through her tirade and were now staring at her.

She'd become accustomed to people staring at her, expecting things but that been from General Hermione Granger, not from bookworm Hermione. She'd never bared her passions quite like that in front of such a mixed audience when she hadn't known beforehand they'd be receptive to it.

"I apologise if I have offended you" She finally offered the still silent house elves, unsure what she'd done.

It was Jeremy who stepped forward and she finally recognised the emotion in his gaze: admiration and hope. She'd been looked at like that before but for the first time by a house elf.

"No, Ms. Winchester you need not apologise. We are just stunned and very grateful for your words. If what you have said is indeed true we would benefit from changing ourselves. I believe from now on that at least in Hogwarts castle younglings will be spoken with quite often. And I think all the elves will now be observing classes and students invisibly to increase our grasp on the English language, hopefully. In a few months time we shall see if any improvements have been made."

All the house elves nodded seriously. Now that they were aware of a problem they would work together to fix it.

Even Albus had stopped laughing to stare at the house elves who now all turned back to their work before turning his own admiring gaze back to her.

"Is it I who must apologise to you for laughing inappropriately. It has been a long time since I've last seen anyone so passionate, never mind about a race that other wizards and witches view as inferior. It was surprise that made me laugh, but nevertheless I did not intend to make you so uncomfortable." Albus shook his head slightly before returning to looking at her. "But I want you to know that you are an incredible person and I am honoured to know you. I believe you are the proverbial butterfly with its wings – the house elves at Hogwarts are already changing because of you. Your influence may very well cause us to look at a much more pleasant future in twenty years time."

Hermione knew that Albus was not omniscient, that he could not possibly know but damn if he wasn't close to the truth.

"May I ask what an impressive young lady such as yourself is planning on pursuing as a future career?"

Hermione paused and thought back. She believed in fourth grade and sometimes in fifth grade she'd had some ideas.

"I am uncertain, as yet, Professor Dumbledore. I would like to finish the war before I devote myself to something different. Personally, I would be interested in being a teacher or in pursuing research or becoming an Unspeakable and exploring a variety of hidden things. But I think most of all as my top priority I'd still like to work at the Ministry to change the way we view creatures and people – Goblins, Centaurs, Unicorns, Merfolk, Dragons, Werewolves. Did you know that the Dragons held at Gringotts are severely mistreated? And don't get me started on Werewolves: they're human most of the time but because they turn into a werewolf once a month suddenly we need to ostracise them? And of course I know that there are some werewolves who actually enjoy being a wolf and deliberately go near towns and villages before their transformation and yes, they're scary as hell up close but these are real people just like you and me! We don't ostracise all male wizards just 'cause someone calls themselves a dark lord! So why would we suddenly decide alienate entire races based on one or two individuals? Because that makes _so_ much sense!"

Albus smiled at her, very amused at her ranting yet again. She hadn't meant to. She'd in fact been of the opinions she'd squashed all these dreams during her training but now she hadn't been able to stop herself. All her passions seemed to have come forth again, all her annoyances at the laws governing the wizarding body in the UK, and most especially at the politicians.

Rolling her eyes at her own actions, Hermione plopped back into her seat.

"Sorry Albus, my mouth ran away from me again. You know they say the worst thing you can do is put a dumb person in front of them because you can't argue with dumb people – they just haven't got the capabilities to understand what you're saying so no matter how logical your argument they will just repeat their point of view over and over again until you give up. I would argue, however, that wizards are worse. They're happy to accept 'It's magic.' as an explanation for everything. They don't seek out truths or the science behind how things work – why do you think the muggles have managed in the last century to create aircrafts that allow them to fly hundreds of people at the same time in one aircraft across the planet, have submarines to explore the sea life kilometres deep into the water, create automobiles that can cover long distances on land in a short space of time, sent a manned rocket into space as well as land and WALK on the moon. What have wizards done in the last hundred years? We have got barely anything to show for it, pretty much no new spells or inventions. Those that do come in are mainly from muggleborns wizards and witches because we've been taught to question, taught to invent, taught to create. Witches and wizards are taught to follow rules one through five and you'll come up with a certain result. We are expressly warned from deviating from doing anything different once we come here. What is it you really want to teach people? Hm?"

Hermione had leant across the table, eyes stern as she questioned her headmaster. Professor Dumbledore was staring at her with wide eyes; obviously no one had questioned him in decades. Not only that he had been utterly unaware of most of the advances made by muggles but resolved to keep up with the news more, for now, however he would enjoy these spirited conversations with the girl in front of him.

"You bring up an interesting point, Hermione – May I call you Hermione since you called me Albus?" Hermione flushed but nodded. She'd forgotten she technically didn't have his permission to use his first name yet. Though Albus eyes twinkled and his smile at her was genuine she was still embarrassed at such an obvious faux-pas.

"Nonsense, there is no need to feel embarrassed my dear. I very much enjoy our conversations and you are free to call me Albus, as long as you remember it's Professor Dumbledore or Headmaster if we're in front of staff or students." He adjusted his glasses and leaned back whilst grabbing some cherries of the plate in front of them.

"Now, I admit I have not kept up with muggle news as much as I should have. Have they really managed to land on the moon?"

Eyebrows raised, she nodded. "Armstrong was the first human to walk on the moon. It's gravitation is much lower than on Earth but just enough to keep people from floating off into space whilst his suit provided him with the oxygen needed. Neil Armstrong was his full name and he was sent up via the American Apollo 11. At least 600 million people worldwide watched this live via their TV's."

Albus looked at her intrigued. "Interesting. I don't think anything like that is being taught in Muggle Studies. What would you think if two nights a week at dinner we do a muggle education class for everyone? I believe it would be very beneficial and interesting for everyone."

Hermione mulled this idea over, before nodding. She added "I think muggleborn students would similarly benefit from wizarding education twice a week. Simple things such as the government, etiquette, dancing, points of view."

Albus looked delighted at her input. "Oh, this should be interesting." He rubbed his hands. "Could I ask you to set up these evenings for a month? I think you would have the most effect if the way you convinced me is anything to go by. Of course you'll be paid for teaching and it will be on your graduation certificate."

Hermione grinned. She'd always wanted to be a teacher and she'd drawn up lesson plans and learning schedules since third grade.

"I'd love to, Albus. Now I'll need at least a week to figure out how to operate Muggle Equipment in a magical environment – I had already worked on the beginning steps but never got around to finishing it. I'll let you know once I have got it."

Albus laughed. This student was very interesting – he'd not had this before. He wondered if maybe he should interact more with the other students and if all of them were this fascinating with so much depth and so much unbridled potential. This youth was what he'd missed over the last thirty odd years. It was inspirational.

"Oh my dear, when you are finished could I convince you to register this with the Ministry? I believe it would make you an obscene amount of money."

Hermione blinked. She had originally worked on this idea before she'd been taken to the camp and it had been for the war effort rather than anything else so it had never occurred to her to register it or to receive money from it.

"I-" She stopped herself, before biting her lip and then nodding. "Yes, yes. I think I can do that. I'll let you know once I've figured it out and we'll go from there."

"Sir, Miss, Breakfast is being served in the Great Hall now, if you wish to join." The house elf she'd been introduced to the first name was speaking to them now.

"Thank you Lena." Hermione stood up slightly, knowing Dumbledore would have to appear in the Great Hall. She brushed off the crumbs from her clothes before looking at Albus again.

"Can I presume safely that your glamour is for beauty reasons rather than anything else, Hermione?" He looked at her seriously again, needing to ensure that she was safe to be around his students, though after these last few hours of conversation he doubted that she wasn't.

Hermione smiled. She'd known he'd noticed it but had wondered why he hadn't said anything – she understood the need to clarify and to ensure that she knew he was aware of it.

"Yes, Albus. After they died I was without adequate nutrition for a while. This is what I would look like if I had been able to eat food and drink before I came here." She shrugged slightly. It was sort of true and also not.

"Ah – that's how you knew Jeremy. He normally deals with our abused or bullied students. I had wondered how you had made his acquaintance." Albus looked at her sadly. "I do hope you will be alright soon. House elf magic should speed up your recovery and hopefully you'll be able to lose the glamour soon."

Hermione snorted slightly. "Sorry, but the glamour will stay on. I have got rather unsightly claw marks on my cheek – from a werewolf, before you ask. It's not a big deal but students are so involved in their little lives and love to gossip. I'd rather not give them any more to go on, if that's alright."

Albus laughed slightly. The gossip system in Hogwarts was miraculously quick, he had to admit.

"I have a scar in the shape of the London Underground on my kneecap. I tend to not show that to openly either. I do believe war wounds are meant as an attraction to the opposite sex though, my dear."

Hermione laughed. Albus had always reminded her of her grandfather, war-weathered, humorous, light hearted, interesting and yet the most powerful man she knew. She hummed her agreement to his words.

"What is your favourite food, Albus?" He looked honestly contemplative at her question before coming to a decision.

"Ice mice. Though Bertie Botts flavoured beans are a close second."

Hermione grinned. He hadn't discovered muggle sweets yet, then. "I shall introduce you to some of my and my friends' favourite muggle sweets sometime then. You'll enjoy them. For the record, my favourite food is lasagne."

"Oh, I haven't had that in a while. They are delicious. And I look forward to your introduction of the muggle sweets."

Hermione smiled. "Would you mind an excursion into the muggle world with me sometime? I need something to experiment with and to grab some other things for introducing muggle culture."

Albus reciprocated the gesture as they walked towards the doors of the Great Hall.

"Would Sunday suit you, my dear? I believe we could leave at 10 a.m. after Breakfast has finished."

Hermione looked at him in surprise. She'd expected to have to wait a week or so for him to clear his schedule. With a slight shrug, she accepted.

They entered the Great Hall together but whilst Hermione went to the Gryffindor table, Albus joined his Deputy at the Head table.

"Minerva, I just had the most interesting and delightful conversation with your newest Gryffindor. I believe Hogwarts is due a lot of changes in the coming months. Here's to hoping that most of them will be positive."

His deputy looked at him puzzled. The headmaster had left at the end of their meeting, downtrodden and generally furious at what had taken place. And he had seemed tired to the bones, yet after talking to Ms. Winchester he seemed to have changed mood considerably and come up with new ways to change Hogwarts for the better. Suffice to say, Minerva was very intrigued at this turn of events.

"Will you let me in on your secrets, Albus?"

His twinkling eyes went from Hermione, whom he had raised his glass to, back to the Transfiguration teacher seated next to him.

"Of course, Minerva. I will tell you everything after lunch."

She nodded and returned to watching with hawk eyes the people entering the hall. Even now they hadn't figured out who'd done the spell work yesterday and the Marauders had been dismissed entirely as suspects to everyone's surprise.

She wondered what the rest of the day would bring but was in no way prepared for the changes the entire weekend brought upon them.

Hermione's first week at Hogwarts was nowhere near finished and yet she'd already rocked the boat hard. Every change influences more change. An unpredictable storm is about to roll over the Wizarding world and no one knows where it will bring destruction and where new life. Unknown to everyone it was a young time travelling witch was what started the entire weather change and she was about to make sure that absolutely nothing and no one stayed the same.

There is no fate, no predestined path, no fortune telling – we all make our own future and the Wizarding world was about to learn that – the hard way.

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Thank you everyone – within a few hours I have over 510 readers. Let's see if we can push that up further.

And three new reviews already! Thank you! Now, gimme more J

The sentencing will be announced in the next chapter (I haven't forgotten).


	5. Chapter 5

**Creating your own future**

Chapter 5 – Ghosts of memories

**This chapter is dedicated to:**

**LK-HoGwArTs-hEaDgIrL: **Thank you! I hope you'll enjoy this chapter too. And thank you for sticking with the story and for leaving reviews J  
**MissLynn11:** Thank you very much. The Muggle outing will be taking place in the next chapter, hopefully I'll be able to upload that one this weekend J

**piperholly7: **Thank you very much for all the praise and thanks for sticking with the Fanfiction. I do hope you enjoy this next chapter just as much. I'll try and upload another one this weekend. But your praise is very encouraging, so please keep leaving review J  
**Hannah Bowers:** Thank you so much for taking the time for the review. I hope you'll enjoy this chapter. Please let me know what you think.**  
Proudbooklover: **Cool, thank you very much. Let me know what you think of this chapter. And thank you for staying with this story.**  
Smithback: **Yay, thank you. Remus should have a nice moment at the beginning of this chapter.

**nostalgiakills: **Brilliant, thank you. If you have anything you think could be improved don't hesitate to let me know J Anyway, hope you like this chapter.

The Marauders had not known what to do last night. They had been divided, two set against Hermione, two for her. Then they had gone to Dinner, curious about what she'd been hinting about. But none of them had expected the stand she had taken with the other girls against the bullies – and a Ravenclaw too! Everyone expected it from Slytherins, but a Ravenclaw? And Lily had been among the ones bullied.

All their preconceived notions had taken a hard beating last night and they'd gone to their dormitory, silently contemplative, before discussing the events of the previous night. Hermione was strange and unemotional, but also strangely driven and opinionated. She knew a lot of magic and was good for a laugh but could disarm them within the blink of an eye. She was an oxymoron and Gryffindors liked being able to put people into nice, fitting niches. Unfortunately this girl had stubbornly decided not only to not fit into their niches (Slytherin = bad, Ravenclaw = boring, Hufflepuff = overeager, Gryffindor = good), she had also decided to mix everything so none of it made sense anymore.

Remus and Sirius tried to convince Peter and James that niches simply would never fit people – there is no simple good or bad; Remus was a werewolf, but he didn't want to kill. Other werewolves, such as Fenrir did though. Sirius was from the Black family, who, true to their name, was into the dark arts; yet he, his grandfather and Andromeda refused to bow to the latest dark lord.

"There are only shades of grey, James.", Remus continued yesterday's discussion, gesticulating as he was eating. "People will never fit into categories just because that's what you'd like. If they do fit than you are overlooking part of their character. I am not purely good and neither is Sirius or Peter or yourself just because we're in Gryffindor. Or do you think any prank is justified just because we're in Gryffindor? I know you don't. So why is this suddenly such a surprise that people are not solely defined by one character trait they have? Merlin, I like books and Lily loves books; yet you don't see us in Ravenclaw. We have more than one trait. Slytherins can be brave. Hufflepuffs can be sneaky. Ravenclaws can be over eager and Gryffindors can be incredibly studious. People are multi-facetted and you are doing them a great disservice by only looking at one part of their character!"

Suddenly the werewolf realised the silence that had overtaken the Great Hall, though Dumbledore stood up and clapped and drew some of the attention that had been on him away.

"Very well said, Mr. Lupin, very well said indeed. It is something we would all do well to remember. People can and do surprise us – we are constantly evolving and changing who we are. Now, onto the perpetrators that were discovered yesterday." Albus put both hands on the podium and unleashed his magic so everyone could feel it raising the hair on their skins and the sky above them darkened.

"Such behaviour is deplorable and will no longer be tolerated at Hogwarts. If anyone is experiencing anything similar, please go to your head of house or see me directly if you feel you cannot talk to them." He sternly regarded every one of them, before he allowed the sky to lighten again and his magic retracted again. Whilst before he had seemed a huge, imposing sight, it was as though he shrank in on himself until he was back to his usual height.

"They were sent to Azkaban, sentenced to spend two months there. Upon their release they will not be allowed to return to Hogwarts for a year, but instead are required to help out shop owners on Diagon Alley to hopefully instil a sense of community and cooperation in them. I hope everyone finds this satisfactory, but if you have any concerns, please raise them with your head of house. Now, please go off to enjoy your first weekend of the school year!"

Everyone began to discuss what they thought of the sentencing though the general consensus was positive. Most students walked outside to enjoy the rare sunny weather whilst chatting about everything that had already happened.

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Hermione quickly separated herself from the groups. She could feel the tremors coming on. Once out of the Great Hall she quickly took two shortcuts until she was in front of the Room of Requirement. Walking up and down three times, she slipped into the room.

The magic Albus had released, plus Lily's concerned hug had set it off. She could've probably handled on or the other but not both. Her wide eyes and pale face as well as the trembling hands had unfortunately made the redhead very sympathetic and she'd hugged her as a gesture of encouragement and companionship. It was regrettable that it had done the opposite.

Her muscles contracted and her teeth clenched involuntarily as she rode out the first spasm. Her breath came out in gasps once it was over but she made sure her tongue steered clear of her teeth so when the next tremor hit her she didn't bite her tongue. Another spasm followed which had her crying out slightly with the pain that accompanied it.

It took over half an hour before it calmed down and her body was covered in sweat, her eyes were red from tears and dilated with pain. It took her another twenty minutes before she could even think of moving. Her hands were still shaking but it wasn't too bad. She dragged herself into the bed the room had supplied her with and crawled under the covers. She already knew which dreams would haunt her sleep but had no other choice. Her body was exhausted and this was the price it demanded. Her head barely touched the pillow before she was gone.

_She had heard the rumours, of course. So had everyone else. She hadn't known whether it was true or not; part of her had hoped it was simply that – rumours and nothing behind it. When she had seen the first victims she had been horrified. _

**_(A/N: Dark, creepy scary torture. You can just skip this. I'll put another Authors note at the end of it.)_**

_And now she was in Camp Potter. Ironically. The first thing they had done upon her arrival was to bind her magic, so it could not be used against her captors. The second thing was to undress her. The third was to be branded, like cattle, on her inner thigh which was always very sensitive to any pain. The hot iron on her skin and the smell of burnt flesh made her vomit, though she hadn't know it would only get worse from there._

_They had different stations as she found out. One which used magic on people, one intended solely for torture, one to extract information and one which contained everyone's main fears whilst the last one was solely dealing with illusions. She had been special and had gone through each and every one of these._

_The illusions were there for two purposes – one to exhaust you and the other to confuse you. They enjoyed making you see all your loved ones around you, everyone happy, before they were slaughtered either by yourself or one of your loved ones killed everyone around you. The despair that gripped you when you saw it – for everything smelt, looked and sounded so very real – was devastating. More than one lost their minds with grief, others lost it unable to tell reality apart from illusion._

She remembered a particularly vivid one, sitting in the Great Hall with Harry, Ron, Albus, Minerva, Aiden, Ginny, Luna, Hagrid and Flitwick. The rest of the Weasleys were with her family, questioning them about the uses of Rubber Ducks and Electricity. Everyone was laughing and generally enjoying themselves. Harry started a food fight half way through the meal and she laughed so hard, tears ran down her face. She was so happy, everyone was happy. There was no thought about danger or war. Then, suddenly, Harry's eyes went red and he had killed Albus. One after another they fell at her friends' hand, either by the wand or the sword of Gryffindor. She could still see their shocked expressions – and she hadn't lifted a finger to help them, to stop her friend from committing this ... slaughter. Harry turned to her, a wide and happy smile on his face as he licked the blood from his fingers.

_Then, suddenly, she was back, surrounded by death eaters and other muggles or muggleborns. The smell of the blood was still in her nose though and the she could still feel its warm sticky texture on her hands. It was so real. The fear that coursed through her, the grief at seeing the death in everyone's eyes, the sharp sting of betrayal at Harry's actions, everything was so real and her hands had shaken with the realisation of what a scary place her mind could be._

_It had taken several more 'sessions' before she had learnt that the people were always as she remembered them. Ron and Harry were becoming less and less focused – she couldn't quite recall how many freckles Ron had on his left cheek, couldn't recall the way Harry's hair would lie. She could barely make out Arthur's, Molly's, Bill's and Charlie's features. And that, more than anything, would be enough for her to hold onto to wake her from the nightmares._

_Next came the one with people's main fears. It contained different methods of electrocution, drowning, being buried alive, suffocation, snakes or spiders; basically anything and everything that people feared to die off. You were sent in there with two other muggles or muggleborns at your side. They may kill you off or one of the people next to you – and that was the problem. You really were being burned alive, you really were drowning – it just depended on if they rescued you or if they didn't._

She remembered being pushed under the water, eyes wide and arms flailing, desperate for air. And just when she'd felt as though she'd need to open her mouth, even if she was surrounded entirely by water – she'd be pulled out. She remembered tears of relief and heaving gasps of air, before she was dunked back under, panic in her entire being, eyes wide, staring at the other ones next to her. It was only after the fifth time that she heard one of the other Death Eaters announce the death of one of the girls she'd come in with. Hair splayed around her, she was floating up to the surface, eyes wide in her death. And then she'd been pulled away from the sight only to be electrocuted. The pain, the muscle spasms as her body and her neurons were fried it was unbearable. She had seen more than one come out of that one drooling, brain dead. Nothing but an outer shell left. They were usually sent directly to the magical spell section.

The feel of your skin flaying off your body, the smell of your own flesh burning and the sheer heat when you were burnt alive. You could see your skin melting off your body, your entire body almost dissolving. And yet this one was only an illusion most times, though she had seen boys and girls burn alive next to you way out of your own grave, the very air around you disappearing, snakes slithering all over you, spiders crawling on her, hairy legs brushing against her. It was all intended to either kill you or make you afraid of your own shadow.

Information extraction included trying to rip through her mind, crucios, imperios – killing off other muggleborns if you didn't give the information. Anything they could think of that may make her talk. The feeling of someone going through your thoughts was akin to rape, rape of the mind. Her innermost thoughts and feelings laid bare in front of these monsters. The crucio's stole her breath, like a thousand needles piercing her skin, knives twisting in her flesh. She was luckily at least trained to not obey the imperio, but the other methods were not much better.

The next one was solely for the pleasure of twisted people like Bellatrix and Lucius, intended to use muggle or magical methods to cause the most pain whilst still keeping her alive. It was about the loudest screams they could drag out of her, how long they could keep her conscious for whilst they tortured her, anything demeaning or cruel that came into their minds. Some of the girls had literally been eaten, piece by piece by Fenrir. She had been forced to watch as he tore into them, careful to not bleed them to death too quickly. After a while, the tears stopped coming.

_The last one was mainly intended for new Death Eaters as target practice or to test new curses on them. It was just as cruel as the other ones though you knew you wouldn't be coming out of this one alive._

During her stay there they invented another station. In this one people were trained to flinch away from any positive touch. Anytime they were touched they were shot at with pain curses until their mind associated the two. It had only been in its beginning stages but everyone was sent there now after their arrival.

They barely ever got fed or any water. Muggles died quickly if not from the different stages then from dehydration. Magic in Squibs and Witches and Wizards allowed them to survive through the inhumane conditions.

Everyone was huddled together, naked. There were no beds, no covers, pillows or duvets. In the winter everyone crowded together to maintain a modicum of heat – the magical ones tried to be on the outside as their magic allowed them higher chances of survival. Once the new station had been introduced, it got worse. Everyone tried to leave just enough space to not touch each other, but there was never enough physical space for that. In the end they found out it was okay as long as they initiated the contact, so the huddling continued only more awkwardly and with as little touch as everyone could get away with.

_Few people survived beyond a year, only a handful past the half year mark. Screams were echoing everywhere at all times of day and night. The sheer amount of people together in these small spaces was mindboggling. _

_Most people became catatonic within a month. People barely spoke, their throats raw from screaming. There was only the camaraderie they had for the pain and suffering they went through together. On a weird level, everyone was equal here; there were no more differences, though as Harry Potter's friend she'd had the doubtful pleasure of being called out more frequently than anyone else._

_After three months her muscles were all but gone and she'd had to be dragged to most stations. The torture station had been most common lately, because she still refused to give out information. What they didn't understand was that she had used magic to lock the secrets away in her own mind with a house elf as secret keeper months ago. She couldn't give over the secrets they wanted, otherwise she was certain she'd have broken long before now. But there was something in her that refused to give, refused to back down, refused to be broken and it meant that the Death Eaters had a bet going on on who would finally be the one to make her speak._

_Fenrir, Rosier, Bellatrix and Rabastan this time. Bellatrix was rarely not there for a torture session – she delighted in other's pain far too much to stay away. She'd been barely dumped in the middle of the room before Rosier advanced, a hot iron in his hand. Hermione tried to shy away, but there was nowhere to move, nowhere to run._

_The pain made her grit her teeth and groan in pain. The next moment Bellatrix used two spells on her, before cutting her open – only her blood didn't leave her body. The pain was excruciating and she screamed as the hot iron was pressed against her internal organs. She blacked out only shortly afterwards. It was electricity running through her body that woke her up next, screaming, yelling and body twisting madly on the ground in a macabre dance. The current stopped shooting through her but it took a while for the pain to stop. Only then did she realise that a house elf had grabbed her and was apparating her away. _

_Still unsure if this was not an illusion, she sat naked on a hill as the deathly magical circle tightened like a noose around Camp Potter, killing everyone inside. A part of her felt slight regret at the ones who had survived for a year only to be killed during the rescue. Another, bigger part of her felt relief that this monstrosity and a lot of its people were now wiped off the planet, including Bellatrix and Fenrir._

_She remained there, unresponsive to the outside world as people cleared up once everyone was dead. All she saw was the red-coloured ground, stained with the blood of muggles, Squibs and muggleborns alike and the yellow sun rising above it all, illuminating the grisly scene. The only thing she could think of was how red everyone's blood was, not mudcoloured._

**_(A/N: That's it over. Hermione survived some bad stuff. Bellatrix and Fenrir died in Camp Potter.)_**

Hermione came to herself with a shiver. This time it hadn't been too bad, she'd only remembered the last moments rather than in the middle.

She had to suffer a lot of consequences from her short stay at the Camp. Exposure to a lot of magic caused her nerves to spasm, as though she was being electrocuted. She couldn't have water anywhere near her neck or any higher or she had panic attacks. Any touch that was not initiated by her made her go into either attack mode or had her huddling herself in a corner, despondent. Hermione wasn't sure which one was better.

The smell of roasted pig or chicken turned her stomach and made her vomit faster than most anything. She had scars crisscrossing her entire body and a part of her had been broken in that camp though being in this time she found she could laugh again and that was a part of her she had thought lost.

With a spell she was dry and her clothes clean, the smell of sweat was vanished with another swish of her wand. Standing up, she found her legs were considerably less shaky than expected and she could walk unaided to the door.

Her feet led her to an unoccupied classroom on the third floor. Yesterday had reminded her what it was she needed now – Music. Her emotions had always been tied to it; as a kid she had learned ballet, flamenco and ballroom dancing. Now she also enjoyed simply sitting there with the music blasting out around her.

She didn't bother locking the door, only ensuring it was sound proof as she turned one of the tables into a sofa and four chairs into sound system she placed around herself before swishing her wand to start the music.

Eminem's Like Toy Soldiers echoed through her speakers, followed by Tom Lehrer's We will all go together when we go and Adele's Set Fire to the Rain. The Cab sang Angel with a Shotgun, which provoked a wry smile from her and then AC/DC followed with Hells Bells and Thunderstruck. It was a rather eclectic mix of music but she enjoyed it.

What did take her aback was the Marauders entering the room just as Whole Lotta Rosie by AC/DC started playing. With a grin she gestured for them to take a seat and enjoy the music with her.

$%$%$%%$%$%$%/*/*/*/*/*/*

The Marauders had finally come to the joint conclusion that Hermione Winchester couldn't be too bad. She had a sense of humour and enjoyed pranks. It had taken them an entire morning of arguments to come to that conclusion – which meant Sirius missed his detention. Now they were using their map to find the elusive witch to try and befriend her – again.

Curious as to what she'd be doing in an abandoned classroom they snuck into the room, only to hold their ears at the unexpectedly loud music around them. They exchanged glances but when she waved them to take a seat they shrugged and did as she asked.

Sirius' eyes widened at the song as his teenage brain translated the lyrics. He exchanged a wide eyed stare with his mates before relaxing to enjoy the rather crude song which seemed to be titled "Whole Lotta Rosie".

Her mischievous grin really should've warned them that something was up, but it didn't dawn on them until most of the way through Rosie by Jackson Browne what it was about. Remus and Peter blushed to the tips of their ears whilst Hermione laughed. She played KT Tunstall's Black Horse and Cherry Tree last, another song filled with innuendo's which set the boys cheeks on fire.

With a last "Finite Incantatem" she allowed the music and everything else besides the couches to dispel.

"So boys, did you enjoy it?" She was still amused at how flustered Peter and Remus were, though Sirius was quick to wink at her, but she noticed even he looked uncomfortable and none of them would meet her eyes.

"By Merlin, it was some songs. Have some balls!" She watched Remus and Sirius choke whilst James looked at her wide eyed. Peter tried to make himself smaller.

The entire scene was so amusing she started laughing again. The supposedly suave and confident teenage boys had been stumped by her playing a couple of more sexual songs, though none of them had been explicit.

"I am sorry. I had no intention of scarring you for life." She smiled at the boys and Remus finally regained enough control that he replied.

"It's okay, Hermione. We just haven't been exposed to much muggle culture and certainly none of the songs you were listening to." Remus shook his head. "We're not used to girls being that ... direct."

The brown haired girl laughed again. Sirius leaned forward to wink at her, charming smile on his lips.

"Though if you're interested I'm sure none of us would say no. Well, with the exception of Jamesy here. His eyes are only on Lily, have been for years. But hey, I wouldn't say no to such a pretty bird."

Hermione's smile became less pronounced. All her scars were hidden, but she could not help but feel self conscious about them – especially after that episode earlier today.

James was quick to hit the back of Sirius' head in reprimand whilst Remus was the eternal mediator.

"What my friend was trying to say was that we came here to offer you our friendship." He held out his hand to her.

Hermione stood up, so she could avoid having to lean over and touch the other boys to shake the hand. Smiling she approached Remus and shook his hand. Young Remus' face seemed to momentarily overlay older Remus' face, remembering the same gesture being offered to her years ago – or would that be in a few decades?

"Pleasure to make your acquaintance. Hermione Winchester, prankster extraordinaire and music-loving muggleborn witch."

Remus stood up and shook her hand again. "Remus Lupin and the pleasure is all mine. I, too, am a prankster extraordinaire and I am a book loving muggleborn." He easily matched her smile, eyes sparkling with pleasure.

Sirius cleared his throat as he approached. "Sirius Black, milady" He bowed and with her consent took her hand to place a soft kiss on it. "Prankster Fantastico and the most charming, womanising pureblood you'll ever have the pleasure to set your eyes on." He paused slightly before continuing. "I have also been told I am pretty good with my wand work." Remus groaned in embarrassment as he dropped his head in his hand but Hermione broke out into laughter. Sirius' eyes twinkled when he looked back at her and she couldn't help but giggle further at him. She heard Remus whisper to Sirius that extraordinaire was an actual word in the English language; Fantastico was definitely not. Sirius elbowed him and told him to shut up.

Peter suddenly stood in front of her, eyes on her as if daring her to do anything to his friends. She was surprised at this change in demeanour to the meek boy she'd observed in other people's memories but didn't pay it too much attention.

"Peter Pettigrew. It's nice to meet you. I am a prankster too and a very protective, halfblooded friend." Ignoring Remus' hiss to play nice she acknowledged his threat and firmly shook his hand.

"Peter, I swear on my magic that so long as Remus, James, Sirius and yourself remain firmly against Dark Lords I will do my utmost to protect you in body, magic and mind." She felt her magic sit on her skin momentarily as her oath took, before sinking in. In her time it had become fairly common to use oaths to ensure truthfulness and harmlessness. She'd forgotten that in this time it was seen as a fairly big issue to swear on your magic.

The boys stared at her in utter surprise. Swearing on your magic meant that if you broke this oath your magic would literally consume you alive. It was devoting your entire life to what you swore to.

Peter relaxed and trust shone in his eyes after her promise and Hermione thought it was worth the pause she'd given the Marauders by using an oath.

"Err – sorry. My name is James Potter" She shuddered slightly which got her weird looks again from Remus and Sirius, though Peter now seemed firmly on her side. "Prankster extraordinaire and pureblooded Quidditch star."

Half of her was tempted by now to echo a 'Hello James' at him in an imitation of AA meetings, but she knew the boys were unlikely to get the joke so she refrained. Barely.

"Well, new friends, it is nice to meet you all. May I ask what you do on Saturdays in a magical castle to entertain yourselves?"

The Marauders exchanged grins. "Well, I don't know if you've been to Scotland before but sunny days such as the one today are rare enough so when we have them we spend as much time as we can outside."

She nodded. "How about a picnic then? I know when my friend was seventeen he could barely stop eating."

The boys looked similarly enthusiastic about the idea. "How about we meet at the lake in fifteen minutes. I'll bring food, you bring people, good music and blanket. Sound like a deal?"

A cheer came from the Marauders before each dispersed into different directions.

"Tibby?" The house elf appeared in front of her, holding out a strip of turkey which she took without a word. "I would like to enjoy a small picnic with some new friends of mine. Could I ask you to provide us with some food?"

The overexcited elf nodded quickly and disappeared before she could tell him how many to expect. Shrugging slightly she decided to move to the lake. Lily was already there with Remus, spreading a huge picnic blanket on the ground.

The afternoon was spent enjoying herself and observing the people around her. The relaxed and joyous atmosphere was making her happier than she'd thought and the spell around her allowed her to relax enough in the knowledge no one would be able to touch her or get that close to her.

She joked with the Marauders and had intense discussions with Lily and Remus about several books. It was a wonderful bonding experience and they only returned to the castle when the sky started to cloud over.

It had been years since Hermione had last allowed herself to be this relaxed. Even the closeness to the lake hadn't caused its usual difficulties. The day seemed pretty perfect so far. First her discussions with Dumbledore and now the Marauders.

For a moment she could feel Harry's voice in her head fading slightly and Ron's admonishments disappear. The ghosts of her friends had accompanied her for years – Ron talking about food or how shifty Slytherins looked and how she really ought to put the books down to enjoy life once in a while and Harry – Harry would be there to tell her if something seemed off or dangerous, he would be there to tell her he believed in her just as he'd always done. She enjoyed listening to them and whilst she mainly ignored them it was a comfort she'd grown used to. Now, momentarily, she'd felt oddly bereft though the happiness had been there. She supposed she'd had no need for either of them in that moment but after years as the Golden Trio it had caused her to feel empty more than anything else.

Shaking the feelings off, she followed Harry's voice who was yelling that he wanted to see his mum and dad more and couldn't she hurry up a bit. Ron grinned happily as he strolled behind them and Hermione found she was content.

There was much to do, but nothing right now. She could just enjoy the moment with her boys.

The last glints of sunlight hit her face as they peeked through the clouds and she could feel the warmth rushing right down to her toes. It was magical.

Stepping in synch with one another the trio stepped through the Castle's doors. Harry hummed slightly before suggesting they hit the books which caused Ron to roll his eyes and fade into non-existence rather than having to look through boring books.

So she found herself heading towards Hogwarts library, intent on researching ways to make muggle equipment operational around magic. She wouldn't be able to try her methods until tomorrow, but that didn't matter, really. Because just now, right in this moment, everything was alright. Everyone was alive and she'd make sure her best friends would be born again.

Humming in tune with Harry, Hermione grabbed the first book she wanted to look through and started her research.

854 people have read this story. 854! This is so incredibly amazing! And that's in only a week. Anyway. I'll stop bragging now.

Thank you everyone for reading, following, favouriting and reviewing! Please keep it up!

Next one will be the shopping trip.


	6. Chapter 6

**Creating your own future**

Chapter 6 – Magical Muggle world

**Authors Note:**

Errr... I may have made a mistake with my timeline. I thought James' and Lily's 7th year would be in 1976. Turns out it was actually 1978. Unfortunately that means that the dates are all incorrect; i worked on the basis that there were some school days before the first weekend but in 1978 it all starts on a Friday. So I am very sorry, but for unknown reasons the Ministry of Magic had everyone take the train on 29th August...

**2nd Authors Note:**

I have descended into a bit of techno babble in this chapter and a rant. Sorry! Also, Supernatural will be mentioned in this chapter, but with any luck it'll make sense without any prior knowledge of the series. I hope, anyway. Oh, and if you don't recognise some of the animals, look it up. I promise, it's hilarious!

**This chapter is dedicated to:**

**MissLynn11: **I did enjoy writing that bit with the muggle music, I have to say. I figured with how prudish everyone in the wizarding world is, it would be a bit of a shock to hear a female listen to these songs, never mind being in the same room with one whilst a song about masturbation is playing J Hopefully Peter is starting to turn away from the dark path with his protective instincts towards his friends, but I'll guess we'll find out.

**LK-HoGwArTs-hEaDgIrL: **Thank you for continuing to review.

**Proudbooklover:** Thank you so much. You don't know how glad I am to hear you say (write) that. I was worried my characters were entirely OOC, though I'd hoped that they weren't. And thank you for the compliments, again J Anyway, if you have any ideas for the further muggle word explorations let me know.

The only reason Hermione was even aware of time passing was due to Tibby appearing with food and drink. She never noticed the library emptying and was rudely jerked back into reality when Albus Dumbledore sat in the seat in front of her, his robes a midnight blue with a moon and stars flitting about.

The brown haired girl blinked, suddenly feeling tired.

"Albus?"

"Ah, dear girl. We must stop meeting like this. Have you even been to bed yet?"

Rolling her shoulders slightly to relieve the stiffness, she frowned.

"No, why? What time is it?"

Though she was asking him she cast a tempus which showed her the time as 2.08 a.m.

"Oh..." Hermione found herself blushing. She hadn't meant to get so absorbed – between planning their outing in the muggle world and researching the use of muggle technology in magical environments she'd not been aware such a long time had passed since dinner.

Albus, luckily, seemed more amused than angry at her rule breaking.

"Ah yes, books are incredibly fascinating. It is such a shame not more of your classmates have recognised this though even I would not recommend staying up this long."

Hermione quickly packed her pen and paper away whilst putting the books back onto their shelves.

"I know, I know. My friends used to have to drag me out of the library usually because I have a tendency to get too interested in research or new spells. I apologise, Albus. I'll set an alarm next time. I just hadn't thought that much time had passed at all."

"It's not a problem my dear, as long as it doesn't become a habit."

Grinning sheepishly she offered a meek "Too late?!" to him before moving towards the library's doors.

Albus laughed in response and followed her.

"Well, I hope you'll have enough energy for tomorrow's excursion."

Hermione paused. "Albus, about that. Did you say you'd pay for everything?"

Stroking his beard slightly, he looked at her puzzled. "Of course, my dear. After all this will be part of the school's curriculum."

A part of him thought he probably should have been frightened at the wide grin she offered him in return.

"Okay. Prepare to spend a lot!"

Laughing to herself, she entered the Gryffindor common room.

The sight that greeted her made her momentarily pause, before she broke out into peals of laughter, until tears ran down her face and she found herself on the floor, out of breath.

"Oh my god, did you try to go up the girl's dorm?"

The marauders were stuck in various positions around the room, adhered to the wall.

Sirius had a manatee's mouth, rhinoceros' eyes, koala's ears and he was stuck on the ceiling, making indignant squeaking noises at her – well as indignant as a squeaking noise can be. The elk's antlers on his head were rather amusing though. In top of that Sirius' entire body was covered with different bird feathers and he had multi-coloured polkadots all over him. He fluttered his arms but couldn't actually remove them from the wall which meant only his feathers puffed up slightly like a cute robin blustering. She sniggered slightly until he spread his peacock tail and she was laughing again as he seemed to pout. It was somewhat hard to tell from a manatee's mouth.

On the other hand Remus had a wolf's snout, beady phoenix eyes and giraffe ears. He also had a fox's tail. He had horizontal stripes across him in all different colours whilst his skin was covered in different types of fur. He found himself hanging upside down, with one leg at an odd angle between the two windows and he growled at her – in a sort of cute, puppy way. His tail was waving slightly at the sight of her which only served to make her more amused at his predicament.

James was stuck with panther claws, pelican's mouth, eyes of a chameleon and the large hanging ears of a beagle. He, too, was striped all over with intermittent spots but his skin was scaly like a crocodile. What was most amusing though was the small, puffy white rabbits tail he had on his backside. That alone was sufficient to make her burst into laughter – never mind the supposedly threatening meow that came out of his mouth.

Barely catching her breath she noticed that James had been stuck sideways on the wall, with the claws pointing up and his feet spread. Peter however, made her burst into another bout of giggles.

He had the huge tail of a kangaroo, a tarsier's eyes, the mouth and nose of a star-nosed mole with the ears of a donkey. The fluffiness of his fur pointed towards an angora rabbit though every single strand was multi-coloured.

They all seemed upset at her laughter and once she regained her breath she summoned her old camera and quickly took some pictures.

"What were you trying to do in the girls' dorm anyway?" She looked at the four boys and barely suppressed more laughter.

With a sigh she took her wand and concentrated. In a complicated pattern she swished and moved her wand through, murmuring in an old norse language which finally caused all four boys to slowly be lowered to the ground, the transformations reversing themselves slowly.

"See, I know for a fact that if you had been invited up and with one of the girls you would have been able to enter the girls' dorms without difficulty. The fact that you were glued to the wall and transformed tells me that you came with mischief in mind and without invitation. Now, time to confess." She knelt in front of the Marauders who were slowly rubbing their limbs and stretching to regain sensation.

"It's tradition – new Marauders' friends get pranked. Except you pranked us instead – which is an unheard of accomplishment. So, how did you know what we were going to do?"

Hermione laughed. "I didn't. The dorms are warded – call me paranoid but it helps me sleep at night. Now, if you'd intended to cause harm, I'm sure you can guess what would've happened..."

Remus caught on. "Wait – so you're saying the wards read our intentions and because we intended to prank you it pranked us instead. Now, presumably, if we had been intending to cause harm, it would harm us instead."

Hermione smirk was cold. "Ding, ding, ding. And we have a winner. Anyone intending to cause harm will have equal harm befall them. Should they intend to kill, they will instead be the ones dying. So, you can go to bed safely – same wards are across your dorms."

James frowned at her. "But Hermione – we're in Hogwarts. It's safe here. Dumbledore is the strongest light wizard known and no one would dare come in here."

She could see that he was certain, his shoulders were tense and there was no doubt in his posture at all, no hesitation. Part of her wondered what he'd think if he knew that his son had encountered and fought Mountain Trolls, a Cerberus, Devil's snare, giant chess sets, deathly potions, vicious spirits of dead lords, a teacher who loved the Obliviate, a Basilisk, house elves that tried to kill you to help you, horcruxes, escaped convicts, death eaters, werewolves, dragons, merfolk, sphinxes, teachers that tried to torture and kill and Dark Lords out for his blood. Yes. Hogwarts was completely safe. But if she had her way, then James would never know any of this or any other potential issues.

Her smile was soft, understanding his innocent disposition.

"I believe you. But I cannot and will not feel completely safe without these wards and they will not cause you any harm nor anyone else unless they intend to cause some. And I don't mean the "Argh, I'll kill you" in a joking kind of way. The wards pick up on intent, not words. So hey, it's just one more level of protection, though I am sure it's completely unnecessary."

James focussed on her for another few long moments before he obviously relaxed and believed her.

"You really are paranoid. My dad keeps telling me about this guy he works with – Moody. He apparently believes everyone's out to get you."

Sirius stared at her before interjecting. "It's not paranoia if they're really after you." His smirk at her was challenging and she answered with a short laugh.

"Soo... Can we prank you now?" Remus looked at her, intrigued at what she would do.

Hermione could not suppress her answering smirk. "You can try, if you wish, though I'd be careful about these pictures circulating around Hogwarts tomorrow."

Sirius gasped. "You wouldn't!"

Her grin turned evil. "Oh, trust me. I would."

James stared at her, amazed, whilst Peter chuckled. "C'mmon guys. She's got us; at least for now."

Remus leaned forwards slightly. "I am somewhat curious still as to what you were doing up at 2 a.m. Curfew was hours ago."

To her surprise she found herself blushing as she stood up and dusted off her clothes, clearing her throat awkwardly.

"Enough chitchat boys. I'm off to bed now. Lots of things to do and people to see tomorrow."

Remus scanned her form again, before he started sniggering. "You were in the library and lost track of time."

Hermione paused slightly, but unfortunately long enough for the boys to pick up on.

Sirius burst into laughter. "Seriously? We were starting to think all sorts of mischief you could've gotten up to and you got, wait let me get this straight: you got distracted READING BOOKS in the LIBRARY." He turned to his best friend. "Prongs, we got pranked thrice now by a goody two shoes."

Rolling her eyes good naturedly - though her blush hadn't faded - she went into the girls dorm. With efficiency she stripped down and changed clothes rapidly before getting ready for bed.

Her dreams that night were for once not haunted by nightmares but instead by the reason she'd ever even thought it was conceivable to alter the past.

_"Hi, my name is Dean Winchester." Hermione looked up from her glass of bourbon into the green eyes, eerily similar to those of her best friend. _

_The man in front of her wore a nearly worn out leather jacket, dark shirt and dark trousers. His face was the more rugged handsome kind and his skin was sun tanned from long hours outside. She could see the slight scars marring his body, the gun and knife he was concealing and most of all – she didn't care._

_The US didn't have wizards and witches like Europe and Asia. The USA had demons and even werewolves turned more mental over here – the only way to become a witch over here was demon deals. And she'd needed a reprieve and decided this was the perfect place – even Voldemort didn't dare cross over here._

_"Hey Dean. Name's Hermione and I'm sure it's a pleasure to meet you." She shook his hand slightly before releasing it again._

_It had been two months since she'd been out of the camp but she hadn't been able to function quite right again. This was her holiday – what a joke. She only hoped no hunters would find her – they were normal humans hunting and killing the supernatural creatures out there – except she'd not made a demon deal for her powers but from what she understood they were the shoot first ask questions later kind of people._

_The man in front of her was very handsome and if she'd felt more confident in herself, in her scars she would've easily taken him up on the offer of a few hours of passion and forgetting the horrible reality out there. But as it was muggles had dropped her like a hot potato once she'd undressed even slightly so her confidence was even more shaken than before._

_"So what's your poison?"_

_She quirked an eyebrow at the man. "Bourbon, please."_

_He spoke to the waiter momentarily before turning back to her. "That's a hot accent you've got going. England?"_

_"Yep. You born and bred over here, I presume."_

_"Yeah, I'm more of a US man, though I have to say if all the chicks are that hot across the pond I may have to actually board a plane."_

_He surprised her and drew a chuckle out of her. She could tell that he was far more used to drinking his problems away and that he bore a heck of a lot of guilt – he was too similar to Harry for her that way to not be able to read these signs immediately. Yet he was also more confident, outgoing, suave than Harry would ever be, she thought._

_"Before this goes any further I need to clarify that this will not end in a one night stand." Hermione fully expected him to leave at her words but he took her by surprise by simply relaxing back into the dining type seats._

_"That's okay. Just making sure you get a good impression of the US and not have one of these douchebags try their moves on you."_

_She laughed. "Ah well then, I'm glad for my knight in shining armour. I would hate to have to fend off the suitors lined up in this bar." She tossed a glance around her at the men with beer guts and old bikers. It was the middle of the working week so it was relatively quiet._

_Dean grimaced, following her eyes. "Yeah, granted – I hope they don't mar your expectations of American man. I assure you, we're mostly better looking than that."_

_To her surprise, she found herself responding by flirting with him. Her head still wasn't sure about anything around her or whether he was safe or not what with knives and a gun on him, but it had been the first time she had actually felt anything positive, felt as though there was something still inside her and she wanted to see where it would go._

_"Trust me, I've met the perfect male specimen." She allowed her gaze to slowly drift across him before meeting his confident smirk with her own._

_Dean chuckled slightly. "Now, honey, what drove you to this dive instead of a nice date."_

_Her smile froze slightly and Dean was quick to pick up on it._

_"You don't have to tell me if you don't want."_

_She patted his hand slightly and rolled her eyes. "Next you're going to tell me it's not my fault it's yours." He laughed with her. "No it's just. Uncomfortable. I- I was kidnapped. And they had no demands" She met his eyes, to see if he understood. She could almost see the shutters going over his eyes as his entire countenance grew grim._

_"Let's just say it wasn't pleasant. After two months I was rescued but my fellow kidnappees were not as lucky. No one else survived."She found herself fiddling with her hands, upset at the memories even as curtailed as they were. _

_"So I'm sorry. I won't be good company for some time yet and I honestly don't mind if you want to return to the bar."_

_"Sorry, I don't give up that easily. I have seen similar things in my line of work."_

_He'd surprised her – again. She found herself relaxing as she took another drink of the bourbon, desperately yearning for firewhiskey. No pity, just acceptance and camaraderie. She could handle that._

_"Now, this may seem odd but do you ever remember any smell of sulphur or erm... trick of the lights? Anything out of the ordinary."_

_Great. A hunter. Sulphur were signs of demons, even she knew that much. _

_Hermione rubbed her eyes tiredly before deciding to abandon all pretense._

_"No, this was not the work of a demon, Dean." She saw him freeze and his hand reaching for his weapons whilst saying "Christo."_

_"No, I'm not a demon either. They were just plain human bastards. Unfortunately. It would have made more sense, in some ways, if they had been supernatural." She shivered at the memories and her hands were shaking to her surprise._

_Dean paused another moment before loosening his grip on his knife._

_"Can never be too careful." She noted the apologetic tone of voice and gave him a slight nod. _

_"You want me to drink some holy water, touch silver cutlery or anything?"_

_He shrugged but handed her a flask which she drank out of, vaguely noticing that it was now her trusting him. The knife was next and she touched it but paused when he shook his head. _

_"You need to cut yourself with it."_

_Rolling her eyes and mouthing "Seriously?" at him she pulled up her sleeve. She could hear his indrawn breath when he saw the words carved on her forearm but she ignored him and just made a line next to it._

_At his nod she pulled her sleeve back down and he took it back with a grimace._

_"Sorry, Hermione." He awkwardly gestured to her arm._

_"It's okay, Dean. I understand; you had to be sure. So – are you still spending the evening with me?"_

_She could see his smile at her and found herself responding in kind, though her heart was heavy again with the memories of pain._

_"Of course. It's not often I get to brag about our exploits without having to modify half the story, you know."_

_She gave a half-hearted chuckle but leaned back, Bourbon in her hands to enjoy the evening._

_Four hours later, very much plastered but also happy – they were kicked out of the bar as they'd been trying to close for over half an hour._

_"So get this – Cas stole this journal from us and we were thinking about how you get an angel in league with the king of hell to give you a journal back when he doesn't want to when Bobby's all like Or just read the copy I already made. Hi. Glad to meet you. Bobby Singer, paranoid bastard."_

_Hermione burst into laughter and Dean snorted along with her. An apocalypse, Purgatory and angels. Wow, the world was fucked up._

_"You know, Dean, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."_

_He grinned. "You quote movies – I like you. Are there any more where you come from?"_

_She smiled, melancholic. "I think tomorrow it's my turn to tell you a story."_

_"Sounds good." They drove the sleek Impala – nicknamed Baby – to a dodgy motel at the edge of town. _

_"You sure about the one night stand thing?"_

_She found herself leaning into the leather-clad man. He was extraordinarily attractive despite the reminders of her childhood friend._

_"You know that last two men I tried to have sex with since the kidnapping ran away when they saw my scars."_

Dean held her eyes. "I've got my own scars. I wouldn't care."

_It took her another moment to agree. True to his word, Dean was not bothered by her scars beyond the sympathy she saw in his eyes._

_He was beyond gentle with her, every touch and caress approved until she felt her body and magic allow him to explore, trusting him._

_The next few hours were mixed pleasure, tears, laughter and pain as he worshipped her and got through to her for the first time. And for the first time she felt like Hermione Granger again, the bookworm and the witch that couldn't be stopped._

_The next morning they woke up to loud knocking on the door and Hermione and Dean reached simultaneously for the knives under their pillows when Sam entered. The tall lanky man had wide eyes and lifted his hands slightly when confronted with two people with knives._

_"Woah, Dean – it's just me." Hermione kept the knife up until Dean clarified that it was Sam, his brother._

_She blinked and put the knife back under her pillow._

_"Sorry. Samuel, right? My name's Hermione."_

_The tall man looked flustered and stared hard at her eyes as he held out his hand._

_"Yeah, call me Sam."_

_That was when Dean held out one of his shirts for her and she realised the duvet had slid down her body and she'd exposed herself somewhat to the younger brother._

_She flushed and quickly pulled the shirt on._

"Erm, Dean, I found us a case." The younger but taller brother said awkwardly to his brother. 

_She knew immediately that his elder sibling was up to mischief by the smirk he threw he way, winking._

"Demon, ghost, vamps? What is it?"

_"Dean!" His younger brother shouted before turning to her with his most diplomatic smile. "Sorry, Hermione. My Brother likes to joke."_

_"Oh yeah, he's very funny. He told me yesterday – he's batman. Your Sammy, the overeager puppy and then we have the antisocial Castiel – an angel of the lord."_

_Sammy's mouth kept opening and closing before he turned to his brother, hissing angrily. "Dean!"_

_"Sorry, Sammy. I already knew."_

_"It's true, they were told at school about the creatures loose in the US. It truly is a pleasure to meet you, Hermione Granger." _

_Hermione found herself blinking at the trenchcoated man in front of her with tousled sex hair and the most intensely blue eyes. His voice was strangely gravelly and she found herself somewhat turned on by this angel – his face was immaculate with a five o clock shadow which enhanced his already very attractive features. And the voice was really very attractive._

But mostly she felt surprise at the man in front of her. He'd rebelled against everything he'd known for millennia for Dean, had risen and killed his own brothers and sisters to help them, died for them, gone far beyond everything he could give for humanity's sake, for these two brothers. Not only was this kind of loyalty hard to come by but for these two brothers to have inspired this in an angel who had seen the dinosaurs still walk the earth – it boggled the mind.

_"Wow, an angel of the lord. I'm sure the pleasure's all mine." She smiled softly. "You are just in time. I believe I promised Dean here a story and as I want to hunt with you for at least the next week, I think you deserve to hear this too."_

_Sam looked intrigued as he held out some breakfast to her whilst Dean settled on the opposite bed. Castiel stood awkwardly in the middle._

_She snorted. "Guess you weren't kidding about the socially awkward. C'mmon Castiel, have a seat next to me. You may need to protect me from the brothers when I begin."_

_The angel hesitated before taking a seat next to her, hands folded in his lap and posture ramrod straight. Rolling her eyes, she started to explain to the two brothers about the other, other world out there._

Hermione woke up with a gasp. She had last seen the Winchester brothers a few months ago. They had been together for two months, working cases together and that first time had been the only time she'd slept with Dean. Instead she seemed to have become Sam's adopted younger sister with the way he kept fussing about her. In turn she had tried to help them heal as they had trusted and betrayed each other more often than they probably told her, even though it was all with the best of intentions. But they were the reason she was now here, they were the reason she'd spent three months working on a way to go back to the past, to permanently erase the future. They had given her the idea and Castiel had assured her that only magic would be capable of it as the rules that bound demons and angels were much too strict to allow this kind of interference.

In turn she had promised to save Mary Winchester, their mother, on 2nd November 1983. Hopefully by then she would have finished the wizarding war and Voldemort would be dead with any luck.

A quick Tempus informed he that it was 8.42 a.m. That meant she'd slept nearly six hours and with pleasant dreams. This must be some kind of record for her.

Unfortunately it also meant that the other girls were awake so she decided to use spells instead of a nice shower.

Greeting the other girls she used spells to renew the spells and makeup covering up her scars before quickly changing into muggle clothes for the day – jeans that widened at the bottom and a nice blouse along with some earrings and a necklace.

With a quick wave she rushed down the steps and towards the Great Hall. Just before she went through the door she remembered the previous evening and the photo's she had taken.

Grinning mischievously, mood at an all-time high, she called for Tibby and asked the elf to develop and distribute the pictures to everyone by lunch time. She also let him know that she'd be out with the head master in the muggle world today and wouldn't require any food or snacks.

The elf nodded and disapparated to do as she said.

Noticing the time she rushed her breakfast before hurrying to the main entrance doors. She didn't notice Sirius cleaning further down the hallway – he'd forgotten his detention, but unfortunately McGonagall hadn't and now he had to do it on a Sunday.

He watched in surprise as the headmaster walked towards her and she transformed his clothes into muggle clothes for him. He seemed delighted at her choice and they left Hogwarts together.

Frowning Sirius watched as they walked to the edge of the wards before disapparating, wondering what this could all be about.

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"Trust me, Albus, you'll love this. Off to London!"

She held onto his arm as he disapparated. They reappeared in an alley next to Tom's pub.

"Do you need to obtain muggle money?"

"No, my dear, it's all already taken care of. "

"Fantastic – in that case follow me to the Underground. We're going to take the Underground to the airport. There we will catch a Concorde flight to New York. It's a supersonic aircraft which means that it goes beyond the speed of sound, i.e. the flight takes approximately 3.5 hours, dependant on wind and weather conditions." Hermione took Albus' wallet and showed him how to use the ticket machine and how to get through the automatic ticket gates before continuing with her explanation.

"Now, say the flight takes exactly 3.5 hours with the time difference that still means if you leave London at 10 a.m. you'll arrive in New York at 8.30 a.m. 1 ½ hours before you ever left. Isn't that clever? And it's the only aircraft to break the speed of sound that can actually take passengers."

Hermione relished finally being able to explain these things to someone. Neither Harry nor Ron had ever really been interested in these nifty facts but Albus was hanging onto her every word, surprised at how far muggles had advanced.

"There are some military ones which can break the speed of sound but the Concorde is a joint engineering project between France and UK. It's somewhat complicated – basically speed of sound is measured at Mach as it differs on the Ground to in the Air. On the Ground 750 miles per hour would mean you'd hit the speed of sound but in the air you can fly 2000 miles per hour and still not hit Mach 2, though Americans would be happy to tell you that you should have already.

Now Concorde will travel roughly around 2000 miles an hour and we can be in New York in as little time as 54 minutes. The Americans are not allowing us to use the jet stream above their airspace, which doesn't mean that we can't use the jet stream when we're over the Atlantic and it then adds another 500 miles per hour to our speed." She grinned slightly, excited and gesticulating as they sat in the Heathrow Express.

"Now the other mistake the Americans are currently making is that they're thinking all they need is bigger engines and more fuel so they have built engines 25 times the size of the Concorde that are literally pouring fuel out and need to be refuelled in the air due to the high loss of fuel – which is quite dangerous – but they're still not achieving the speeds the Concorde never mind taking hundreds of passengers with it. Now, we have come up with still better engines that achieve a higher speed still so we could literally make it all the way from London to Australia in 13 minutes. Unfortunately, it would take the aircraft three hours to slow down. And then there's the problem of coordinating other airspaces and getting their permission to travel through for 1/12 of a second as there would be no way of avoiding anything at those speeds; it's simply unfeasible at this time. But the Concorde is incredibly fast still and can be coordinated. Basically the problem with most American and Russian jet engines is that belief that vehicle and gas exhaust velocity are the same. The engines on the Concorde suck in the air at only 400 miles an hour due to some quite complicated engineering and compression it comes out at 4000 miles an hour." Dumbledore looked like he was suffering from an information overload but Hermione found herself unable to stop now.

"Now what also causes trouble for most people is the fact that at those speeds the entire aircraft expands and then shrinks back down when you land. However, as a pilot you'd be looking at a very tightly fitted dashboard with everything tightly held together but when you're up in the air you suddenly have huge gaps between all the instrumentation. As you can imagine the problem would then be that the bolts and everything that holds the aircraft would expand and loosen – so the nifty engineering here was to ensure that everything expands together smoothly and contracts again just as smoothly. It's rather incredible, actually. And you'll find some people moaning about the fuel economy and so forth but really nothing is very efficient. We're really only meant to travel 5 miles, i.e. walking distance. Anything else is already inefficient. If we take a car for example and pretend we could drive the entire distance – it would need over 900 gallons of fuel. The Concorde hits incredibly high speeds - which, let's face it, is never going to be very efficient and yet it only needs 300 gallons of fuel. And it can be at between 1/7th to half the time it takes a normal aircraft. That is a phenomenal difference."

Albus looked somewhat dumbfounded. She wasn't sure if he understood half the terms she'd used but she'd gotten too excited at the possibility of finally having someone to share all this knowledge with. She suddenly noticed that there was a group of other people around her that were also staring.

"Do all children your age have this kind of knowledge?" His eyes were wide and Albus was seriously starting to think there were quite a few flaws in the Hogwarts school system if the muggle one taught them such vast quantities of knowledge in a short space of time.

Hermione blushed. "My granddad was in the military and he later became an engineer and a pilot. He loved aircrafts and taught me a lot of what I know."

Dumbledore nodded before proceeding to question her about the terms she'd used.

The fifteen minutes to the Airport passed remarkably quickly and by the end of it, Albus was just as excited as her to finally be able to board the plane.

Concorde had its own check in and she walked up confidently to order the tickets whilst waving her wand to produce fake passports which she then handed over.

Once they had bought the return flight tickets and checked in she walked towards the Concorde lounge at Heathrow Airport and pointed out the different options to Albus.

"You can have a massage, shower and spa treatment here and you can order some food over there. Everything is free of charge. There are some very comfortable leather seats and you can put your coat and bags over there."

Everything was luxurious and relaxing and just what she needed. She knew in later years, when they took the Concorde out of commission, she'd be left with tiny plastic seats, bad food you had to pay for, definitely no spa or rainfall showers with complimentary towels and razors. This, she thought, was paradise.

Albus was happily entertaining himself; currently by sampling some food and he had already asked for a back massage and had a slot in half an hour. In the mean time she took books out of her hand bag – they were called the Winchester Gospel by Castiel. She'd never gotten a chance to read these, so she was enjoying the chance to do so now. It was kind of odd, knowing that Dean and Sam actually existed and these things had really taken place, but also quite amusing to put the much older brothers back into their younger personas.

Righto, hopefully I have not offended any Americans – sorry! And hopefully the Supernatural series byplay made sense without any prior knowledge. If not, please let me know.

Now, next time we'll have more muggle world exploration including AC/DC, cinema's fans, fun fairs, museums etc.

Sorry it's so short but I spent several hours researching dates and times of cinemas, concerts, fun fairs, museums, horse races and other events and currently just want this out of the way.

Let me know if you can think of anything else fun or exciting you'd like to see J

Until next time!


	7. Chapter 7

**Creating your own future**

Chapter 7 – Magical Muggle world (2)

**Authors Note:**

There were some mentions of Supernatural-fans! Yay, at least I know it makes sense to you guys. I'll reveal this much – my intention is to have only a few flashbacks here and there which involve Supernatural. But once Hermione is finished saving (or dooming, as the case may be) the wizarding world, she'll focus on Dean and Sam. It'll be an entirely new story with the weechesters J and that one will be in the crossover section – for obvious reasons. Sam and Dean will be family, though, not lovers or anything of the sort.

Anyway, I hope that cleared things up a bit.

**Authors Note 2:**

Sorry that this one is so short but I have never been in the US, so I didn't want to overly describe potentially incorrect things. Never mind the fact that I wasn't alive between 1970-1980.

Over 1500 people have read this now! Another mile stone! YAY!

**This chapter is dedicated to:**

**MissLynn11**: Yay, glad to find some Supernatural fans out there. I love Castiel – he is so hilarious! Unfortunately you won't meet the Weechesters until the sequel to this story, so it's still a bit away. And regarding the wards: I did think about it but my reasons are as follows – students are allowed and encouraged to practice in their own dorms. Her putting up wards would not raise much of an eyebrow as no one would be checking. If she put them up around other parts of the school however, it would certainly draw Dumbledore's attention and he currently thinks of her as a somewhat eccentric, upset girl who is highly intelligent. If she started putting up wards that interlink with one another learned by curse breakers and similar people he would start to question her too much. Hogwarts wards are quite good and she will certainly promote further safety but it'll need to be more subtle. Or maybe I'm overthinking things L Please let me know what you think of this chapter.

**MysticWolf71891**: Thank you so much for your review. I wanted Hermione as a sort of adopted sister to the Winchesters by the end of it but we'll have a couple more flashbacks which will emphasise that sentiment more. Thank you again, please keep reviewing!

**silver-eyedLadyofDarkness: **Thank you so much! And here's the next chapter. Please let me know what you think J

"Oh my dear, this is a most interesting experience. And these back massages are simply wonderful!"

Hermione laughed at Albus childlike expression as he leaned back in his leather seat. She'd given him the window seat so he would able to watch the takeoff and landing.

"That's great, but I'll need you to fasten the seat belt before the plane starts moving. She demonstrated and he watched closely before imitating her movements.

"Ingenious, simply ingenious. This is to help keep you safer, I presume?"

"Yep, it's crash dynamics really. All these seats are done so if there is a crash they will move – basically the damage you receive from a crash is because your body is still moving in one direction and the force is moving into you – this way the seat will be able to absorb most of it and spread it out rather than your body impacting. But you will receive a safety lecture before the flight begins. It won't be as detailed to explain the reasons why but it will tell you everything you should be doing to keep safe."

Albus inspected the leaflets and the wings of the plane as well as everyone and everything around them.

Luckily he came across like any elderly man; simply unused to technology, though she did receive a few queer looks at his more out of the ordinary behaviours. He looked on with childish glee when the accelerated and then watched the ground disappear beneath them.

"These heights are staggering, my dear. This is all so fascinating."

She grinned mutely and enjoyed the plane ride. Albus seemed convinced that this method was much better than any broom and was happy enough to question the stewardesses on how they heated the food and various other things that intrigued him.

Hermione leaned back and simply relaxed into her seat for the short flight.

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Less than 2 hours later they landed in New York thanks to good weather and wind conditions.

They were out of the airport shortly thereafter and entered one of the cabs at the main entrance.

"To the American Museum of Natural History, please."

Albus happily chatted away to the cab driver and by the end of the journey the two seemed fast friends. They exchanged contact information as they paid the cabbie and exited.

"Now, Albus, this museum will show you Dinosaurs, sea life, a Planetarium. It should have most of what I want to show you in as short a space as possible. Now, get. We're losing daylight."

Actually the day had only broken an hour ago, but she was too aware of all the plans she had for the day and the short amount of time to do them in, which is why she squeezed past Albus and marched quickly to the front desk to purchase their tickets and they moved throughout the huge museum.

More than once she had to warn Albus off touching the exhibits.

"Look, Hermione, these are bigger than some dragons!" Yes – she got a few weird looks when he said that out loud.

"And this whale is simply magnificent! I didn't know they could become that humongous!"

"Wow, have you seen these human skulls? This is truly fascinating!"

On and on it went. She could have sworn he had the agility and excitable energy of a four year old. One moment he'd be with the human skulls than he'd be looking at paintings of mammoths and cave men.

Hermione had quickly realised that he wasn't looking for explanations; he was simply fascinated by everything around him. So she followed him from one exhibit to the next, torn between amusement and annoyance at his antics.

After they had been in the Planetarium – Albus had been, pretty much literally, over the moon at the details and he decided then and there that their curriculum needed a real updating. He was especially fascinated by the fact that people had actually managed to land and walk on the moon.

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Over three hours later she finally managed to get him out of the building.

"Right, Albus. I am unsure how much you know about the US. They have hunters, creatures are incredibly different here, from demons to werewolves. There is no magical society here and that is for good reason. But the point is that I will be apparating us to a place near Los Angeles on the other side of the country after we have had some breakfast."

Hermione hailed another cab which dropped them a short ways from Time Square – one of the side streets should hold- and there it was.

A building with red metal outside and green lettering declaring it as "Pershing Square".

"Let's have some nice breakfast, Albus. American breakfast."

He followed her curiously and tried the hot coffee she'd ordered for him. With a grimace after trying the black beverage, he ordered a hot chocolate before studying the menu.

"What would you recommend?" Albus looked curiously at the nostalgic smile on her face.

"A good friend of mine once told me that if you don't have pancakes and pie then you shouldn't be allowed in the country. And no rabbit food!" She giggled slightly, vividly remembering Dean's monologue on Pie's. He'd even gotten Cas to try one and the Angel had absolutely adored it. Unfortunately since then it had been a constant fight between the two as to who got more burgers or more pie.

"I sense there is a story there." Albus said after they'd ordered.

"And you would be right. But it's not one I'm prepared to share just now. However, what might interest you is the different creatures they have here."

So with a smile and a lot of hand gestures she elaborated on all the creatures she'd seen or heard about – Vampires, Werewolves, Deeva's, Hellhounds, demons, angels, ghosts, dreamwalkers, water creatures... Albus listened, enthralled, at the world she weaved for him with heroic, lonely men and women fighting for what they believed in, for what was right with no thanks and no recognition. Suffice to say, breakfast took another hour and a half before Hermione cut herself off again, realising the time.

She quickly took Dumbledore's money to pay and then urged him out. She noticed the thugs at the back of the alley, but grinning she disapparated in front of their very eyes and reappeared in front of the Magic Mountain, which would in the future be called the Six Flags Magic Mountain. She couldn't help the devious smile on her lips as Albus just stared at the various magical constructs and loud, excited screams around them.

"What is this?"

Hermione grinned. "You'll see. Just follow me!"

With a wave of her wand, Dumbledore simply looked in his forties to everyone else; she didn't want to be stopped from entering the roller coasters potentially.

Entering the Goliath with its yellow seats she instructed him to sit down and he watched curiously as the metal bars came down over his legs and to his stomach.

"What is this?"

"Just enjoy it. I promise it's safe."

Now he seemed to finally notice the evil grin on her face and the mischievous eyes. His eyes were accusingly focussed on her.

"I have seen a similar expression on Sirius' face before he dumped several tons of jam over the entire teachers table. What are you up to?"

He watched slightly nervously as the carriages started moving, slowly rising up above everything.

"This seems to be going very high, my dear. And I don't like the look of that drop up ahead. What is the purpose of this?"

Hermione laughed out loud and refused to reply until the carriages suddenly dove downwards towards the ground and around several bends and corners, up and back down. She was having the time of her life, laughing uproariously at Albus who was starting to enjoy the ride after his first fear ridden moments.

Thrilled at this new discovery he pulled her onto the next few rides until even Hermione had to take a break, head spinning, whilst Albus simply went onto another ride on his own.

After a short recover time they wind into the rotating wild water spinning ring and came out laughing loudly but soaked to the bone. She proceeded to teach Albus about eating candy floss and how hot dogs didn't actually contain any dog meat.

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, defeater of Grindelwald, recipient of the order of Merlin, 1st class, Chief Warlock and Supreme Mugwump; suffice to say he was an admired and respected figure of authority in the Wizarding world and even the Minister asked for his advise frequently. Now, however, he was having the time of his life with a 17 year old, exploring a children's fun fair and he wondered how much he'd missed out on and how much other Wizarding children had missed out on if they had never had this much fun. It was so exhilarating, thrilling and fun!

And the food was so diverse and interesting – even if he still wasn't sure why a food would be called hot dog and not be containing any dog. And the candy floss was most interesting flavours and the colours were even more intriguing.

"I really wish we'd have enough time to take you to a Circus as well, Albus, or one of the shows in Las Vegas, but another time."

"Ah, I am sad to leave this place but I can't help but be excited over the other new things you'll introduce me to. It's been a long time since I could be the student rather than the teacher."

They left the park and Hermione took the train towards Los Angeles for the cinema.

Albus once again was interested in this latest mode of transportation and seemed to half-expect twenty foot drops or sharp curves to appear en route. He questioned her extensively about the history and development of trains and she was only too happy to oblige. Hogwarts still operated a steam train – which, whilst incredibly fun, was definitely not the latest technology.

Upon exiting the train they walked up out of the station and Albus seemed intent on studying all the people around them. But she didn't actually manage to surprise him again until she disillusioned them to enter the Cinema. The people in the cue were dressed up as R2D2 and similarly and Albus couldn't stop staring.

With a bit more wand waving she'd created enough space and seats for her and Albus and a big box of Popcorn.

"Right, this is a movie. Basically there are places where they film people dressing up and pretending all this, speaking lines etc. It's a lot more complicated than that, of course, but it's easiest to explain it this way for now. And the rest is technology used to create certain machines etc. Now, what you need to remember is that none of this is real, it's for enjoyment and make-believe."

With that she leant back and they watched Star Wars which would later be titled Star Wars IV. It technically had come out over a year ago but due to the high demand would be showing in Cinema's for a total of three years.

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She was most amused as Albus was chattering away about the movie and technology, flights to far away planets and aliens. Whilst he kept talking she quickly walked into a specialist store next to the cinema which sold large cinematic screens and rolls of film as well as the necessary sound systems. She then went into a hifi store with Albus following her like a lost puppy, happily expounding on possibilities of Alien life forms what they would look like and the potential of finding entire other cultures out there. Having bought everything she required with Albus' money she led him back out and checked the time. It was well past the time she'd originally calculated.

Cursing, she interrupted her mentor midway. "Albus, I am so sorry but no dice. We will have to do apparition across the Atlantic to make it to Glasgow in time for the concert. We'll fly again another time."

Albus looked somewhat heartbroken at missing out on another massage and flight experience but she didn't give him time to wallow. They couldn't use a portkey as the arrival would be noticed but for apparition the magic left a strong sign only in the place you left, not the one you arrived.

"Have you ever been in Glasgow, Albus?"

The man looked thoughtful.

"I think I may have been, 40 years ago chasing Grindelwald. But I presume it'll have changed since then."

Hermione nodded. She did not fancy appearing in the middle of a wall, it wasn't the nicest way to die.

"Will you trust me enough to apparate us?" Her eyes sought out his; he needed to be absolutely certain. If Albus' magic decided to fight hers midway they were in really bad trouble.

He nodded and after a moment she found herself relaxing, glad that he still trusted her enough for this despite knowing she kept some secrets.

They walked casually behind one of the buildings and hid behind a dumpster. Rolling her shoulder slightly to relax her muscles she called on her magic. She'd apparated more people further away than this before but it still required a lot of focus and a lot of magic.

With a deep breath she tightened her muscles and focused her magic with a swish of her wand to apparate the thousands of miles. Being compressed and then stretched again was an altogether unpleasant affair, she decided as they found themselves in the middle of a crowd all of a sudden. She'd forgotten how well these concerts were attended.

Albus eyes were oddly intent as he looked at her, well aware of the amount of magic and practice that would have taken.

"Thank you, my dear. Now, will you enlighten me as to our next muggle experience?"

She grinned, hooked her arm under his and gestured out to the masses of people crowding around below a huge stage.

"This, Albus, is a concert. The band we'll be listening to is called AC/DC and they play a genre called rock. Their current tour is called Powerage. Now, be young again and enjoy!"

With a grin she mingled. Her spell still allowed for no one to touch her so people found themselves pushed aside gently as she moved but she never actually had to get in physical contact with them for that. Albus followed her obediently and she watched his expression as AC/DC started playing.

By the end of it, she could see he was amazed at the songs and the incredible guitar play, the atmosphere was overwhelming and Hermione enjoyed being in a concert again. As usual the sweat was dripping down their bodies and some divested themselves of their clothing but it was the intensity of it all, their passion and the way their entire being was putting on a show for them that still took her aback and that was what dragged everyone along, shouting and yelling and cheering.

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Albus' eyes were still gleaming when she got them back to Hogwarts just in time for dinner. She allowed the charm on Albus' robes to dispel whilst summoning her own.

"So, what do you think?"

They walked next to one another across the huge, open land in front of Hogwarts.

"I have never seen anything so incredible. The muggles are far beyond anything I have ever imagined, their advances were so quick I didn't even notice. But this..." his gesture was all encompassing. "is something the Wizarding world sorely needs: more invention, more ideas, more passion. People cling to their old ideas and are afraid to move forward. I didn't think I should count myself amongst those men, but I have now seen the error of my ways."

He smiled at her in amazement, eyes sparkling and he seemed so young, suddenly.

"I was just as guilty as everyone else. I never imagined that people without magic could come up with things so ... magical" He laughed. "I believed I knew muggles but I haven't interacted with them in decades and yet still laid claim to knowing about them. I can now see that a lot of things will have to change at Hogwarts; we cannot remain so woefully ignorant of the world around us."

Hermione smiled. Changes. She was changing so many things and she hoped with all her heart it would be enough. Albus was changing and if he implemented changes in the school it would invariably affect all the current students, at the very least. Those students would then go on and become part of the press or the ministry or open a shop – but the word would spread and they would affect other people and make their own changes. The future was already morphing beyond her recognition and that alone made her smile in happiness.

"I will start discussions with the other teachers and we will make sure changes are made by next week. I would still like your input, however. Would you be open for another hot chocolate tomorrow night?"

Hermione laughed.

"Only if you have marshmallows as well."

Albus' grin matched hers and she paused slightly before following him into the Great Hall and joining the Gryffindor table.

She watched as Albus started talking animatedly at the Transfiguration professor who seemed unsure what to make of the headmaster.

When she turned back, she found Sirius staring at her intensely.

"Where were you today? I saw you leave with the headmaster this morning?"

Hermione raised her eyebrows, amused.

"I was just needing to obtain some materials. He was kind enough to accompany me."

Sirius eyes narrowed, but before he could say anything further, photos appeared in front of every student. Five photos to be precise – showing the Marauders in last night's transformation.

There was a momentary complete silence in the Great Hall, before everyone burst into laughter and the boys blushed.

"Hermione!"

She grinned. "I have no idea how these got to everyone. There must have been someone else taking pictures."

Remus snorted in disbelief but was too embarrassed to say anything.

Quickly finishing her meal she snuck back out of the Great Hall whilst the Marauders were assaulted on all fronts and for once on the receiving end of a prank.

Tibby appeared in front of her, holding onto her ears. "I is sorry, Miss. I thought you want seeing reaction."

Hermione smiled as she bent down to look the elf in the eyes.

"You did great, Tibby. Thank you very much!"

Eyes shiny the elf looked at her with a wide smile before disappearing again.

Smiling to herself, Hermione set about finding an abandoned classroom for her experiments.

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Yay. That's the second muggle exploration part. Next chapter probably won't be up until next weekend but please review until then!


	8. Chapter 8

**Creating your own future**

Chapter 8 – Starting a Revolution

Afraid the real action won't take place until the next chapter. For the moment it's more talking than anything else :)

**Anyway, this chapter is dedicated to my latest reviewers, as always:**

**Guest** – Thank you for your review and for your tip. My thoughts were a bit scattered when I first started writing, so thank you. I have updated the summary. Let me know what you think :)

**Angelus Draco** – More Marauder interaction in two chapter's time. Thank you for your review. Hope you continue enjoying it!  
**angel897 – **Yay, thank you very much for your review. Please keep reviewing and let me know what you think.  
**carick of hunter moon** – Yay, thank you very much for your review and you analysis. I hope I can keep your attention, then. Keep letting me know what you think, please.

**MissLynn11 – **Thank you for your long review ;) I think Albus in Vegas and purebloods in Vegas is definitely worth a chapter later on. Anyway, keep reviewing please. I will hopefully have the next chapter up tomorrow.

Please enjoy!

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"Is this really necessary, Albus? Can't it wait until tomorrow?"

"Nonsense, Minerva. We have procrastinated long enough. Now let's just wait until everyone is here."

Grinning madly, Albus leaned back in his very comfortable chair, relishing in the confusion of his staff members. Only a couple of days into the semester and already he was calling meetings; it was practically unheard of.

"Welcome to all new and old staff members. As you may have noticed I was absent for most of today. There is a very good reason for that: Our students have made me realise we have been stagnant for too long. We talk about wars that happened 40 years ago as if it was yesterday, we all – and I include myself in that – have preached equality, invention and spirit but have not promoted or enacted any of that. The founders united with the goal of educating children, of showing them the wonders of magic and improving everyone's life. What have we done since then? We have a ghost teaching history that died nearly two centuries ago, our muggle studies classes are a century out of date and we have no provisions for muggles to start learning about magical culture and vice versa. Children have had imagination stamped out of them – Margaret Mead once said that 'Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.' We have given the children rules upon rules, we have forced them to repeat exactly what we say and do, no room for mistakes. How then should they ever develop a sense of trying new things if that is the very thing we tell them not to do for 7 years? And then we are surprised when the children don't turn out to become great thinkers and innovators. We need to change. Our curriculum needs to change. I am asking all of you here and now to decide if you are willing to change, if you are willing to have every single part of your teaching and your teaching plans looked at in detail by several people, if you are willing to take criticism, if you are willing to learn and be educated, if you are willing to revolutionise the magical world, one child at a time."

Albus sat down again, watching as his teachers were motionless for a moment, still stunned by his speech, by what he was suggesting. But soon the first person to disagree stood up. Hugh, their muggle studies teacher, was the first in line.

"You can't possibly be serious, Albus! We are the best educational institution in the world; everyone is honoured to be invited to Hogwarts!"

"Compared to whom?"

Hugh looked at him, confused.

"Excuse me?"

"Compared to whom? We only have a handful of magical schools across the world. 6, maybe 7? There is not much competition, not much challenge. We are the best by reputation, by being the first school of magic to ever exist. We are not judged by what our students are capable of when they live in the real world. We are not judged by the teachers we employ nor by the curriculum we teach. You have no grounds for comparison because if you do start to look at what we teach and how these children have turned out we failed. Not only us, but the others too. So I ask you again, on what grounds?"

There was a pause as everyone contemplated his words, but once again it was Hugh who argued, lips curled into a sneer.

"Then what would you judge us on? Against muggles? Is that what you are suggesting?"

Part of Albus wondered why he had ever employed someone so obviously biased against muggles in the very subject meant to teach understanding of them.

"Partly. Mainly I ask that you look at yourselves, that you look at the students who left Hogwarts in recent years and ask yourselves why are there no new inventions, no brilliant ideas being discussed? Did you know muggles landed on the moon – walked on the moon? They can traverse over to USA in as little as 2 hours. They evolve by leaps and bounds everytime we turn our heads. What have we done that could compare? I want to one day be able to have our students, our pupils achieve similar great accomplishments. I want to die one day knowing that I left the world a better place. I can't say that yet."

"But you won against Grindelwald!"

Albus leant forwards, hands on the table, blue eyes intently fixed on each and every one of his teachers.

"And I ask you what has changed since then? Politics, people's opinions, rights? Everything is the same! We have another dark lord on the rise, another one with exactly the same goals. That should tell you how NOTHING HAS CHANGED! It's enough. I say we fight against this complacency. Are you with me?"

Even Hugh hesitated before replying.

"I believe you will be looking for a new muggle studies teacher as of next week. First week in, one week's notice. I don't agree with this."

Albus leant back, watching the man leave the room, feeling satisfied. It was always easier if they resigned before he had to fire them. Waiting for another moment, to see if anyone else made any moves, he then stood up again, hands spread on the table as he described his plans.

"Astronomy will have to catch up with muggle knowledge. I will order anything you need, Aurora. As for history and muggle studies: Obviously I'll be looking into replacements who are more up to date on their knowledge. Horace, please look into Chemistry and biology, they may be very useful. Minerva, I think you've kept up to date with the muggle's advances into biology, but please ensure that you are. Poppy, same for you. The machines and inventions muggles have made may be very useful to you, especially in medicine and biology. On top of everyone's subject needing to be updated and revised we will also start having muggle and magical evenings twice a week. We'll start off with teachers leading the magical evenings whilst one of the students will be doing the muggle ones. As everyone gets more comfortable we will start having all of them able to present what they like on these evenings and what they would like to introduce to their classmates. Besides Hogsmeade weekends we will also have excursions into the muggle world. There is so much to discover! We should also start having voluntary subjects students can take, such as arts, physical education, board games, Physics, politics, maths etc."

Grinning widely, feeling elated and excited at the new subjects, Albus finished the meeting.

"I will let you sleep on this. If you have any further suggestions please let me know. I was thinking after dinner on Tuesdays and Thursdays muggle culture nights and Wednesdays and Fridays magical culture nights. Off you hop to bed!"

Startled the teachers moved to leave the meeting room, intent on gathering in smaller groups in the teachers' lounge to further discuss these shocking new plans.

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That evening, to her own surprise Hermione sat down with Peter to help him with his homework. There was not much to do yet since they had only had a few classes for far but he was struggling with some of the more technical understanding of spells so despite her own reservations towards Peter, Hermione had offered her help when Sirius and James had been too focused on pranks to be of any aid to the boy. Besides, she was still on an emotional high from attending the concert.

"Okay, Peter, why do you swish and flick at all, then?"

The boy looked at her attentatively and she found herself softening. He was eager to please and tried his best; it was simply unfortunate that he'd chosen friends who would outshine him. He seemed quite decent still and he wasn't dumb, but people learned differently just as Ron and Harry had. She'd loved books, learnt everything from them whilst Harry learned through practice and would never really be interested in the theory behind them. Ron had been a brilliant strategist. She'd found out whilst they went through war mages training that he found it easier to learn if someone told it to him whilst he was otherwise engaged. His retention rate soared through the roof when she'd started talking whilst training.

Peter just seemed to require talking and different angles of approach to understand what she was getting at.

"Because it's the only way the spell works? If you don't do it in a certain order then everything may go wonky."

Hermione smiled patiently.

"That is sort of true. You need to remember that magic is innate. We all did magic as small children – either passively or actively. My best friend apparated himself when he was a child and another boy, Neville, his magic used to make plants blossom and heal injuries he had. Everyone's magic is different the same as we all find ourselves more or less talented in some areas more than others. But the point is your magic worked before you had a wand. You never needed a wand as a child to make things fly or to move anything. So why now?"

Peter looked puzzled.

"I don't know. Does magic become less accessible as an adult?"

She grinned. That was a good hypothesis.

"Good idea, but no. People mature – as a child you are automatically more orientated towards yourself, no matter how much you like other people. You want to play with a certain toy and suddenly that very toy flies towards you. What you have to remember is that your magic is you so if you need or want something strongly enough it will be done. As we grow up we learn that you can't always get what you want, that it may interfere with other people's wants and needs and you start to respect that. So we learn to suppress our desires and wants and we orientate ourselves to the people around us. Now, magic only surfaces in moments of high emotion, usually anger. At Hogwarts we learn that magic ought to be channelled in certain ways and our magic responds to that. It's like any muscle – you exercise it a certain way and that's the way it'll grow. In this case it learns to respond to using a wand."

Peter looked stunned and Hermione smiled at him again.

"You with me so far?"

Out of the corner of her eyes noticed that Peter wasn't the only one who was now listening to her. Remus and Sirius had paused in the middle of planning their prank, whilst James was actually sitting next to Lily, paying close attention to her words.

"Right, so over the millennia wizards figured out which flicks increased the potency of the spell slightly. Every little bit allowed you to use less and less of your magic. Now that doesn't seem so important now but if you are ever in a fight, it'll save your life. Basically you are born with a certain size of core and increases somewhat over your life as you use your magical 'muscles' – though for it to be a significant improvement you'd need to push past the boundaries of exhaustion incredibly often. If you use it up, you're out of luck. No magic to protect you. That is why it's important to know which flick and swish and stab makes which spell stronger or faster. The words by themselves however are merely there for your own imagination."

Hermione shrugged slightly. She wasn't quite sure how to explain this bit so she paused momentarily to figure out the best way to express what she meant.

"Basically your magic does what you want it to do. It doesn't understand language. It works on intent. You must want and need the result to happen before you magic will allow it to happen. That's why it's so difficult when you first come to Hogwarts. You have to learn to focus all your willpower on that one goal. If you are distracted then that means that it will only happen half-way, not at all or a mix of two which could prove deadly. Watch, I'll show you."

Hermione called her wand to her right palm. She splayed out her hand, showing the wand lying in it motionless.

"Now, Peter show me your lumos."

Confused, he complied. He flicked his wand and muttered Lumos. A gentle glow emitted from the tip of his wand and cast a light across him. At her nod he used nox to extinguish his wand before turning back to her.

Grinning mischievously, wand still lying motionlessly in her hand, she said

"Light."

To everyone's surprise a light was on the tip of her wand.

"Brighter."

Slowly the light on her wand increased until people were starting to shield their eyes.

"Dimmer. Float."

The light dimmed until everyone could see it again and then they watched as the light left the tip of the wand and started hovering mid-air instead.

She loved these parlour tricks though it was actually incredibly strenuous work. Ironically enough she'd have a much easier time casting Protego Maxima or creating golems without moving her wand. The Lumos was a spell that wasn't used much as torches were much easier to use and didn't slowly drain their magic. In turn it meant that she hadn't ever experimented with it and this was actually her first time doing this now.

"What you can actually do is not use words at all. The words are only there to give you something to focus on, something that makes it clear to your own brain what you are trying to achieve. The reason we use Latin is simply because it used to be the language people used when spells were first invented. In the Wizarding world it remained a language for people in the higher echelons of society for centuries longer than in the muggle world."

They watched as she made the light explode into a shower of tiny sparks before staring at her open-mouthed.

"So, Peter, the reason you're having trouble transforming a slug is twofold. First, you probably don't particularly need a slug to transform into a hedgehog. The second is visualisation. You need to know what hedgehogs look like and move like before you transform the slug into them as otherwise you'll have trouble turning it into a convincing animal. Also, the bigger the difference between the two, the harder it'll be. That means if you're trying to turn a slug into a mouse you'll be more likely to succeed than if you decide to turn it into a thestral or a horse as you're trying to turn a small mass into a huge mass. It'll be difficult. Your magic can do it, but it'll expend more magic than you probably want to on a first try, never mind the fact that you always have to use more magic the first time you try any spell than any subsequent attempt. Now, what animal do you know incredibly well?"

Peter paused for a second as he contemplated her question before replying. She'd seen his eyes flit over the boys, obviously trying to decide if their forms weren't too big.

"My kneazle at home."

She grinned. She remembered Crookshanks very well too. Hermione quickly summoned a small slug from outside before placing it before Peter.

"Now, you know how your kneazle behaves, how it moves, what it looks like. Remember it, imagine it, down to the last detail. Remember what it smells like, what sounds it makes."

Hermione watched and waited patiently as Peter closed his eyes and called his house pet to the forefront of his memory. When he gave her a tentative nod, she pointed at the slug.

"Okay, now say the spell. Point your wand at the slug and think of how much you really want to have your pet here instead."

Live to live animal transfigurations were always hard but Peter succeeded on his first try. There, in front of him, sat a live kneazle, licking its paws and looking down at the humans staring at it. It really did look like a fantastic transfiguration.

"Wow, Pete, this is incredible."

Sirius clapped his friend on the back and she watched as the small boy lit up with happiness at this accomplishment. For once he'd been the one to impress his best mates and he seemed over the moon as they all swarmed him to congratulate him and to pet his kneazle.

Even James, who was admittedly the best in the school at transfigurations, admitted to being impressed at how lifelike the kneazle was – especially after it scratched his hands when he mocked it.

These things had all been taught in war mages training. They'd allowed them a grand total of one day to come to terms with the concept before they had damn better be able to not use incantations or move their wands. Then they were taught to moderate the amount of magic they used for each spell so as to maximise impact whilst conserving energy. Well, not so much taught as forced to do it over and over again until they could either do it right or collapsed; sometimes both.

Smiling, Hermione watched as Peter's face lit up as he was for once in the middle of the Marauders, gesticulating and excited, his friends and Lily hanging onto each word. Quietly she retreated to the girls dorms, deciding she needed to get some sleep in. Besides, she'd probably wake up far too early anyway.

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That night she dreamt of happier times, times spent with Harry and Ron, goofing off, playing Quidditch, having snowball fights, the three of them on the run from Death Eaters – it had been fun, almost like a game at first when they played what seemed like hide and seek at times. They had been crowded together in one small tent, her between the two boys. Sometimes they lay beside the fire and stared at the sky, trying to distinguish constellations. They had been children, innocent. She didn't think even Harry had quite a grasp on how dangerous everything had been. It had been almost like a game to run away from the adults and to do this. Because good always won and evil never triumphed. Blissfully innocent and unaware. She missed those times. Times where she'd look at people and see the good in them, where she'd see the wonder in new discoveries as Albus had today. But she had lost that sense of wonder, had lost a huge part of herself in the war and she wasn't sure she could ever regain it.

3.13 a.m. really was no time to be up but as always her body had kicked into gear and forced her to busy herself with something. She could not sit endlessly anymore, couldn't just enjoy leisure time, always had to be doing something, thinking something, occupied around the clock.

With swift, silent movements she got herself dressed and ready before sneaking out of the tower and down towards the abandoned classroom she was using to conduct her experiments.

The one thing she'd found out before she had taken that step back in time was that only active and large amounts of latent magic interfered with electric equipment. On the other hand runes were fine as the magic infused in them was minimal. Hogwarts itself would blow out any electrical equipment and most battery operated equipment as well due to large amounts of magic that had been absorbed by the castle.

Runes inscribed on the equipment would, theoretically at least, prevent magic from interacting with it; it would sort of create a non-magic bubble around the object. At least that was her theory – or her currently most prevalent one. She had several other theories, should this one fail. But for the moment tests seemed positive, though those had been on normal chairs and desks.

Of course as soon as she'd activated the rune set she'd inscribed on the alarm clock she found it blowing up into her face. Huh. Maybe one of the other rune sets would work better.

She set the clock aside to investigate later as she picked out the next clock and looked at her notes to select one of the other 16 permutations of runes she'd come up with for this.

At 7.32 a.m. Hermione found herself covered in dust, soot and with clock parts on her clothing. Nonetheless she was smiling. Her 16th variant of runes had worked – of course it had to be the last one she'd tried! But it was working. The alarm clock was ticking away and any spells she'd thrown at it fizzed out.

With a short spell she was clean again as she joined the Gryffindors for breakfast. Hermione Granger – now Winchester – had managed to make muggle equipment operate in magical environments. Take that, stupid purebloods! Hah!

Quickly eating her food she walked towards her first class of the day. Potions. Though that reminded her that she, somehow, needed to befriend Severus Snape. She was not entirely certain how to go about that yet though.

Sighing slightly Hermione went into the room, mind racing. Already she was in front of her first hurdle. So many plans, so many things she needed to accomplish.

It turned out to be a long day, which felt only longer when she went back to the alarm clock in the afternoon before her next class and found the alarm clock had exploded after all. The only positive she found in the day was when at 9.32 p.m. as she was frustrated and sitting on the astronomy tower, staring at the starlit sky whilst she ruminated on her continued failures to adjust the runes correctly, Albus Dumbledore sank down on the floor next to her and quietly handed her a hot chocolate with marshmallows.

Hands closed around the hot cup she allowed herself to inhale the strong sugary scent from the drink before taking a sip.

"I think Minerva is alternating between thinking I have actually gone mental to thinking it's an ingenious idea. She keeps giving me these looks and I'm half-afraid I'll wake up the next morning in a straitjacket."

Hermione laughed at the image of Albus Dumbledore, Surpreme mugwump, in a straitjacket thanks to his deputy.

"It's not that funny."

Grinning back at Albus, who could barely suppress his answering grin, she responded. "Oh, but it is."

Exhaling gently, she let go off the image and asked Albus what had been nagging at her for some time.

"Did you ever find that after the war you were... almost looking for another fight? Did it ever feel like it's all you have ever known?"

Albus gave her a sympathetic look, before heaving his own sigh.

"It's always so much more complicated than anyone makes out. The adrenaline will stop, but it will take its time. Your body is expecting another attack and can't quite grasp the concept of relaxing fully anymore. It will take time, nothing else will help, unfortunately."

Hermione hummed, acknowledging his reply whilst assimilating the information.

"Did you know that when muggles fight for every 52,000 shots fired only one person is actually killed in war. As much as people bluster and talk to take another one's life is hard. To kill someone even in a kill or be killed situation is so incredibly hard. Most people don't manage it. And it kills a part of you, every time you do it and yet I know that for some people there is no cure, there is no help. Life will genuinely be better if these few individuals are removed. But it never gets easier. Why do people and children glorify death and killing so much? How do they idolise killing their fellow human beings, fellow wizards and witches?"

"Because, my dear, despite everything we've been through we would not ever wish this life on anyone else. We would not want them to suffer as we have. In turn we keep quiet about the horrors we have seen and done in the name of the light."

Albus stared outside, a small part of him wondering why he was being so open to this teenager. Yet a larger part of him knew that not only was she a vital part in whatever was to come but that she was a young girl who had seen and done too much. One of his students, in pain – and he'd help them every time if he could.

"Part of it may stem from embarrassment at examining our deeds in the harsh light of the day. But a part of it certainly is also that we have no wish to revisit our decisions, to question if we ever were doing the right thing at all, for surely the other side, our enemies, were also thinking they were doing the right thing. So who decides which side was right after all – the victor? But that is no justice. That is not fairness. We claim to fight for the light yet any action taken against other witches and wizards directly disputes this. We speak of glorious fights and doing the right thing, we congratulate each other for winning against the other side and yet they are all fellow brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, daughters and sons. No less worthy than ourselves and all fighting for a cause they believe in."

Hermione watched as Dumbledore's gaze was fixed onto a distant past, memories of a war he'd buried resurfacing.

"I received an Order of Merlin 1st class for defeating an old school friend. I was told it was an honour and that I should be proud. Yet we had both been misled by our own ideas of grandeur and our own impressions. Neither of us was perfect, neither of us was light but neither of us was dark either. I believe that given a chance people can change. Who are we to decide that this is all they can be?"

Hermione tilted her head slightly, as she contemplated Dumbledore's words. Albus had received a rude awakening but Grindelwald had not. She wondered what would've happened had both continued together onto that path to destruction.

"I have noticed that people like to fit others into categories of light and dark, good and evil, Gryffindor and Slytherin. They forget that all we are is shades of grey, we all have the capacity for unspeakable good and immense evil within us. They say that the path to hell is paved with good intentions. Our biggest problem is our intense conviction that what we are doing is the 'right thing' to do. People continuously evolve and change, that's the beauty of it. We are not stagnant, we can change, we can become better or worse."

She remembered Peter, the boy who had gone on to betray his friends, betray his best mates and everyone he held dear – the boy she'd left in the common room was as far removed from that as he possibly could be. He was intent on protecting his friends but he intended to do so by standing side by side with them. No longer was he an outsider looking in, feeling unappreciated and abandoned. He'd made himself a part of the group now more than ever. People could change. It was the reason she'd done the time travel in the first place.

"I think that is the real problem in a war situation. You fight people and you kill people and with that you kill the thousand of possible people they could have been. Who knew that the next day they wouldn't have changed their minds? The problem is that life isn't fair and it isn't just. Life is what we make of it. We're going to have to live with the fact that we killed someone's family, left someone without the one they loved. It was our decision. It was neither right nor wrong. They are dead and we are not. All we can do is live life as well as we can, hope to atone for any sins we do and hope that the next time we find ourselves in the same situation we are capable of making the hard calls still, no matter the cost to ourselves. They say that before you enter a war you need to remember what it is you're fighting for. I fight for the innocent children my friends could have been. The innocence we lost in the fight, the lives we lost in the fights. I want James, Sirius, Lily, Peter, Remus, Mark, Nicola and all the other children at this school to remain just that. Children. I don't ever want them to have to decide if they are ready to kill, I don't ever want them to lose that sense of wonder. That is what I want to achieve, that is what I fight for and it is what I would not only die for but also what I would kill for. What do you fight for, Albus?"

And for once Albus Dumbledore found himself speechless.

He'd come here intending to cheer her up, intending to give her a short insight, to show her that there was still good in the world. Instead he found himself taken aback, shocked and unsure how to handle her latest revelations. Most of all, Albus was unsure what he himself would be willing to fight for. He hadn't been forced to put a wand to his fellow wizards in decades and in the mean time he found he had lost his reasons to fight. He didn't want to kill, didn't want to wage war anymore. He wanted to forgive, to allow people to change; but how would people change if they had no own impetus to do so?

Maybe it was time to re-examine himself. No one ever dared to challenge him, no one ever spoke their mind around him and even Minerva was guarded around him. Talking to this young student who had by all accounts seen too much was allowing him to rediscover the person he used to be, thoughts he hadn't had in a long time. Somewhere along the way he had stopped changing, had stopped improving and started to accept the laurels the Wizarding world was so keen to bestow upon him. He'd stopped questioning himself and that had now led to this disquieting moment where he had to realise how complacent he had become, something he had never thought of himself.

Hermione gave him a grim smile. She realised what Albus was going through – she'd had to do it more than once. It wasn't pleasant having to re-examine all your past decision, having to account to yourself why you made every move and what your intentions had actually been. People were ugly and admitting to one self that one's motives may not have been as pure as one had imagined they were was in no way pleasant.

"So, how'd the other teachers take it?"

Albus needed only a moment to compose before he replied.

"I do believe I shall be looking for a new muggle studies teacher and a couple of other teachers. Hogwarts' funds are incredibly high as they have not been touched except for teacher pay for 346 years. It should be more than sufficient to find some new teachers for some new subjects. Thank you for giving me the brochures from the muggle schools, by the way. It was very educational and I was surprised no parent had ever complained that we offered nothing similar."

Hermione smiled. Her own parents had had a few choice words to say but Hermione had for the second time in her life defied her parents and never handed the letter over to her head of house.

"I am looking forward to the new curriculum. Can I suggest looking into hiring werewolves as well as other magical creatures? They are currently not being hired by anyone really or only a few are. Muggleborns, likewise, find it very hard to gain a foothold in the ministry. I believe Damocles has recently released a potion called Wolfsbane which allows werewolves to transform whilst keeping their mind intact. It would allow you to have a bigger selection of people to choose from for these positions. And Remus would surely benefit as well if you have a more experienced werewolf working here and both could keep their minds on the full moon."

"How do you know about Remus, Hermione? I don't believe he would have told you, he is far too secretive for that."

Albus was suspicious again. Well done, Hermione. Why don't you just blurt out that you're from the future, can't do any more harm anyway.

"I knew a werewolf, he was actually one of the people who taught me. Anyway, it only took a month for me to figure him out and that was when I hadn't ever met a werewolf before. You know I have scratches on my cheek from when I encountered a fully transformed werewolf. It wasn't hard at all to figure Remus out, especially since the full moon was just past when he was on the train. The symptoms are kind of hard to miss once you know what you're looking for."

There was no need to let Albus know that she had noticed him putting his wand away again, no need to let him know that she knew he was weary of her every now and again. But by god, it hurt. Albus had been part of her family, especially once Harry and Ron had disappeared. Albus was the only one she'd still been in touch with every now and again. He'd been the one to lead the rescue, the one to send in the house elf to apparate her out of Camp Potter before he'd laid the last ward lines to its destruction. He had saved her and he had been a mentor and good friend of hers.

Now, in this time he knew none of that. She was a new girl who had, barely here for a few days, managed to befriend the house elves, tell him she had a glamour on and tell him in no uncertain terms that she had killed people. Yes, she couldn't deny that he had every right to be suspicious but that did nothing to lessen the pain in her heart.

Yeah, it was turning out to be a great day.

They sat together for another few hours, student and headmaster, silently ruminating on the past days and the future.

It came as a surprise to both of them when Hermione suddenly managed to resolve the issues she'd been having with the runes a couple of days later.

Proudly she turned up in Dumbledore's office to highlight the runes and after several demonstrations they made their way to the ministry whilst she was officially excused from classes for the day. It was Thursday and the day turned more exciting than either of them had imagined, as the timeline had begun to diverge and events took place which hadn't originally until several months later. Hermione hadn't planned for this nor had she been expecting it and yet she found herself in the middle of it and once again couldn't help but wonder if Harry's saving people thing along with his infamous bad luck hadn't rubbed off on her because there could only be so much coincidence.

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Well, sorry for the long wait. Hope you enjoyed it! Let me know what you think...

**Also – are there any movies you would personally like to have shown on muggle nights for all the school? Or anything else very muggle-introductory that you think should appear? Please let me know if you can think of anything!**


	9. Chapter 9

**Creating your own future**

Chapter 9 – Fighting the good fight

**Dedicated to my two reviewers (*sob* only two reviewers!)**

**Vedra42: **Woah! Is it okay to be a little scared of your in depth analysis? Okay, all jokes aside. Thank you very much for your incredible review. It's a huge ego boost and all authors need those... Anyway, thank you so much. The next chapter should bring a bit more action and some more fun our way. Please keep letting me know what you think!

**maya: **Thank you! I hope it does become one of your favourites. Here's the other chapter I promised for today. Hopefully you'll enjoy it. Please review again and let me know what you think!

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It was at 5.47 a.m. that an excited Hermione knocked on Albus door before entering. She'd left her latest muggle project on the table last night and it was still working. She was certain that this permutation was it, it worked and it was perfect.

Guessing the right password to get past the gargoyle had been surprisingly easy. Strawberry Jam was his latest one.

She waited patiently in her seat whilst Dumbledore came into his office in his night robes.

"Hermione?"

"Albus, I've got it. Here" she floated the TV until it was under his nose and pointed at the runes. Adjusting his glasses he studied the runes, paused and then went over them again.

"This does indeed looks as though you have succeeded. This is very impressive, Hermione."

Smiling at her the headmaster sat in his chair to study the runes in close detail whilst his student sat in her chair watching his every move.

After another half an hour Albus finally agreed that her runes were flawless.

"Now, my dear, I believe we'll get ready to go to the ministry."

"We'll need to stop by Gringotts first. I have not had a chance to open an account with them."

Albus nodded at her and Hermione made her way back to the Gryffindor tower to grab all her money and double check she had sufficient weaponry on her. The ministry was a surprisingly dangerous place with Voldemort's agents having infiltrated it and she was also going to be in the most populated street in the Wizarding world. Ensuring that she not only had a gun as well as a miniaturised snipers rifle, several knives and a katana as well as two spare wands and clothing that hid all this she allowed herself to breathe in deeply, sifting through her memory banks.

There had not been a single attack on Diagon Alley or the Ministry. Not this month. This month there would only be the attack on Hogsmeade in two weeks time. Breathe in, breathe out. Voldemort was still lying low. Nevertheless she felt anxious and she wasn't quite sure why.

Quickly descending the steps from the girls' dorm she was in the common room again and once again it was only Remus who was awake.

"Where are you going?"

The werewolf had noticed her clothes, the same almost leather robe she'd first arrived in – suitable for fighting but formal enough for the ministry.

"Good Morning to you too, Remus. I have to sort some things out with Gringotts, special permission from the headmaster to be absent today. I should be back by tonight, don't worry."

Remus watched as the brown haired girl made her way out the portrait hole. He wasn't quite sure what bothered him exactly but he could tell that she was tense and anxious. In turn he found himself unable to shake off the uneasy feeling he had all day – his friends tried their best to ease his mind but once he heard about the attack on Diagon Alley he found himself rushing to the hospital wing.

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Hermione exited the fireplace at Tom's followed shortly by Albus. Her first movements had been to ensure she had a free back and scanning the crowds for potential hazards and entrances and exits. She placed a notice me not charm on herself and stayed a step behind Albus, allowing her to observe everyone else whilst their eyes simply skipped over her.

She waited as Albus exchanged a few pleasantries before pressing on and disappearing through the wall into Diagon Alley.

"Is the notice me not really necessary, my dear?"

She shrugged. "I don't like the crowds. I'll be a wee while at Gringotts. Are you happy to wait or do you want to meet up again?"

"I'll wait. Goblins are fascinating to watch."

Hermione sniggered. They were rather interesting, especially once you'd broken into the place.

They stepped into the building and Hermione walked right up to a teller whilst Albus sat down, watching the surroundings.

"I bid you a good morn for I will put your enemies heads on pikes and ensure your rivers always run golden."

She watched as the Goblin's head shot up at her greeting – it was the greeting of a Goblin friend, as close as a family member or someone who fought alongside them. She allowed the ring on her finger to shimmer into view for him. It was a gift from their king because despite breaking into their bank she'd defended and stood beside them when they fought. In turn they had allowed her a place amongst their ranks and bestowed upon her a ring which allowed every Goblin to identify her as kin, as a protector and defender and as a warrior.

It took the Goblin only a moment to look back down so as to not draw attention to them.

"I will bring you to Rashnok, our leader."

The different branches all had individual leaders who made the decisions. Rashnok was the one for the London branch even in her time. So she acquiesced and followed the Goblin up the different hallways, never noticing Albus eyebrows shoot up as she was taken where even he had only been on four occasions in his lifetime.

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Hermione waited outside until she was bid to enter.

The goblin looked a lot younger than she remembered, less wrinkles in his face and his hands and his voice was stronger and firmer than it had been.

"What is your name?"

"Hermione Winchester. I wish to open an account and to engage in profitable dealings with the muggle world."

"Will you share your information?"

"Certainly. For equal return I would be happy to."

She watched as he grinned, razor sharp teeth showing. Her smile was equally fierce and she ensured her teeth showed as anything else was seen as an insult.

"Fill this in."

He handed her forms. She'd obviously passed the first two tests. Noticing that the quill he handed her would write with her blood she quickly realised that this was the third test. This quill would not allow her to knowingly lie as long as she used on this paper as the two interacted with one another.

The next half an hour she spent negotiating and explaining what she wished to invest in and which companies she wanted to obtain shares from. Having knowledge of the future proved to be oddly beneficial in this regard at least. She gave the Goblins permission to invest into these companies themselves if they wished and she gave them further information on what they were investing in.

She handed over the money she currently held and advised the Goblin's of the rune sequence she was about to register and that funding a muggleborn to sell muggle wares would be further beneficial to them at this point.

With a snap of his fingers her money disappeared into her vault and Rashnok handed her an account statement and a detailed listing of the investments they would be making with her money.

She left the office, shaking hands with him and in a good mood. There was no doubt in her mind that the Goblins would be keeping a close eye on her now but she had at least made potential allies for the moment.

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"I trust everything went well, my dear?"

Hermione smiled. "You could say that. Now, onto the ministry."

They had barely stepped outside before the loud apparition noises startled them. Within moments twenty Death Eaters stood in the centre of Diagon Alley and everyone had stopped moving, startled. Hermione held a knife in her left hand and her wand in her right before the situation had time to even register.

She glanced at Dumbledore and he gave her a quick nod, indicating she should move back into the bank, as he manoeuvred himself so he had no one behind him and could draw their attention.

Hermione almost smiled. Harry had made similar gestures to often for her to count.

Instead she knelt down in the general confusion and drew several runes onto the ground, using her wand to infuse them with magic. She managed to repeat this another twenty three times before Albus started to draw attention to himself.

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"We are emissaries of Lord Voldemort, we are Death Eaters. Bow before the Dark Lord."

Voldemort stepped out of their midst, icy smirk on his lips. He looked... surprisingly human. He had hair and normal face, only his red glowing eyes and his white hands showed the use of extremely dark magic yet. He looked almost handsome and that was a scary thought in and of itself.

"Magic belongs to those of pure blood. Those born to muggles are an abomination and they need to be exterminated so that we can reign over the world, as it should be. Follow me and you will have power at your fingertips you could only dream of."

His eyes went over the crowd, mouth twisted in a sneer. Hermione watched as one or two hesitantly walked over but Albus interfered before Voldemort was able to give them his dark mark.

"Now, Tom, I think you should retreat and leave these people alone."

Hermione watched Voldemort's eyes widen in surprise before they narrowed as he turned around and hissed "Dumbledore."

Normally she preferred to have much more time to prepare though that had been an admittedly rare occurrence during the war.

Albus' eyes met hers and she knew he had made a decision.

"Anyone standing by Voldemort's side loses the right to live if you come across me. I warn you all now. Step back. Take off your masks. Flee. If you don't, you will not be spared." His blue eyes were hard as he looked at the assembled men and women, dressed in masks and wands ready. No one moved but then the dark lord laughed and stepped out towards Albus, wand raised as he yelled to his minions.

"Attack! Attack!" At that Voldemort engaged in a fight with Dumbledore whilst his Death Eaters spread about in a bid to cause chaos.

Now safe in the knowledge she wouldn't be drawing Voldemort's direct attention Hermione ran over to the first lot of Death Eaters; out of the corner of her eyes she noticed everyone else screaming and running in fear rather than fight.

Her left hand threw her knife and it impacted one of the Death Eaters through his mask in his forehead. He fell to the ground dead and she summoned the bloodied knife back with a twist of her wrist whilst shooting off a spell at one of the female Death Eaters. The Sectumsempra hit her in the back and her body separated as it fell to the ground. Hermione immediately fell into a roll as she noticed three separate spells heading for her. She stood up again a few meters away from her last location right behind a tall muscular man. Unfortunately for him he hadn't noticed her approach until it was too late. By the time he managed to lift his wand she'd slit his throat and dropped his twitching body to the ground, focusing on her next targets.

The Depulso took her by surprise and caused her to roll a few meters away until she came to her knees again, facing a female Death Eater advancing on her with a cold smirk, wand raised. The moment she said the words to the Avada Kedavra one of her stone golems raised itself from the ground to take the spell. It slammed its hands together and squashed the witch between its hands before it liquefied.

Her runes were good but the golems still could only take two hits. They would appear every time one of the non-mask wearing people was in mortal danger and this time it had been herself. She hoped she'd managed to create sufficient amounts of them.

Feeling that she needed to conserve her magic Hermione quickly switched to a Smith & Wesson Model 500 Dean had given her – it was supposedly one of the strongest handguns on the market; in 2003. Now it undoubtedly was.

She'd not garnered enough attention as her deaths so far had been relatively quiet. Lying on the ground, knees under her so she could propel herself sideways at a moment's notice, she took aim. She only had five shots, but this gun would be able to hit at over 200 yards away and since it would move at 602 m/s none of the wizards had a chance to escape. Picking out her targets Hermione breathed in slightly as Dean had taught her and aimed before firing five bullets in quick succession.

Unfortunately the noise from the gun drew attention towards her as another five Death Eaters dropped. Quickly changing back to her knife and wand she sent the bombarda at the three approaching Death Eaters. In her retreat she missed the one turning up on her right side and it was only by sheer luck that she turned in time. The gouging spell went through the side of her arm instead of her heart. Quickly bringing up a Deflector shield she sent a spell at the floor to ice it whilst sending off an Avios and a stream of tiny birds flew at the wizard. The other wizard simply stepped around the ice whilst sending a fire spell that had her birds going up in flames before they were even half-way to him.

Grimacing as she felt the warm blood running down her arm, she thought about her best course of action. The adrenaline would keep pain at bay for a little while longer so she knew what she was going to do wasn't the best by any means but her options were limited. There were too many Death Eaters to have a prolonged duel which meant she had no choice but to go all out.

Evading the rather impressive spellwork from her opponent Hermione used the ice to slide sideways. With a quick twist she sent her knife flying and conjured a fire whip with her other hand. The whip easily wrapped itself around the wizards neck and with a pull tore through it. Another flick sent the whip flying at another Death Eater advancing on her.

Breathing fast, she ran to the side to gather where her enemies were. Her hands were shaking and her magic was dangerously low. Activating the golems was no mean feat and now she was paying for it. On top of that she'd just apparated across the Atlantic last night.

Luckily Hermione realised that when people had seen a young witch fight – and win – against Death Eaters, they had joined the fight. She was not on her own anymore and with a tired wave of her hand she called the rest of the stone golems to join the fight so she could rest.

Within a very short space of time there was only Dumbledore and Voldemort left. She watched as Albus called Tom's attention to this fact and watched as he disapparated, swearing. It felt good to be on the winning side for once.

A glance around told her quickly that whilst people were injured no one besides the Death Eaters was dead. That was unbelievable, though admittedly Voldemort's contingent had been rather small.

Conjuring bandages that wrapped themselves around her arm she turned towards aiding any injured wizards and witches. Healing magic had always been more her forte and she'd become remarkably good at it; hence it used up very little of her magic.

It took another five minutes before Aurors showed up and she stopped herself – barely – from snorting derisively. Typical. Too late to be of any use.

Luckily Albus was a tad more diplomatic than that. He easily convinced them that the killing had been necessary as there were too many children and mothers around that needed protection; if the Death Eaters had been revived from any of the spells there would've been loss of life. Thanks to him providing a warning at the beginning the Head Auror agreed with his assessment and they got to work cleaning up the bodies.

She was amused when they took off the masks and the Aurors made their surprise known at the high standing purebloods they found. Of course this drew everyone's attention and soon the ministry found themselves unable to sweep these news under the carpet. Too many saw and too many heard and all of them had just seen Voldemort beat resoundingly. It inspired them, gave them courage and none of them were willing to stand on the sidelines whilst their minister tried to hide anything.

The evening edition of the newspaper was filled with articles and interviews. To the Head Auror's embarrassment they managed to catch one of the Aurors vomiting in an alley at the sight of some of the bodies. It had been grisly, she had to admit, but as she watched people being treated for the Crucio she also saw that no one seemed to mourn their passing. It seemed to have done the opposite and she supposed Voldemort would be furious for the next week.

What bothered her though was that this attack had not happened last time around. This could only mean that she had already changed events or changed someone enough to influence these changes. Too quickly everything would spiral out of her control and she would be left without any means of tracking what was due to happen. Hermione could feel the adrenaline fading and as there were now qualified medi-witches and –wizards around to take care of the injured she found herself unneeded.

"That was some rather impressive fighting."

"I could say the same to you, Albus."

He hummed but she could feel his eyes on her. It was only then that she realised she'd forgotten to clean her robes – two quick spells took care of that but she found herself shaking with the exhaustion.

"Yes, but I have had numerous decades to gather this knowledge. You appear rather young for the skills you just displayed. May I ask what weapons you used?"

Albus calmly walked through the chaos with her at his side, heading for the telephone box that was meant to transport them to the ministry.

"I used my wand, runes, knife and a handgun."

Albus didn't feel the need to inform her that even he'd been slightly distracted when he had seen her fire the gun and watched five wizards drop dead the next moment. It had been somewhat frightening to watch; wizards were all to used to magical weapons were it was all human reaction and spells, words, wand movements and the time to travel from wand to person: it all took time even at their fastest. He hadn't even been able to see the bullet move. It was frightening with what ease muggles could kill and he suspected he hadn't seen half of it yet.

"If all my pupils were as well versed in combat I think I'd have to be afraid for the continued survival of Hogwarts."

Hermione gave him a short smile, her adrenaline was still running and she hadn't quite come down from the high despite the exhaustion pulling on all her limbs.

"This is a more interesting visit to the ministry than even I had anticipated, Albus."

He nodded, eyes scanning over her just in front of the telephone box.

"Are you okay?"

"Couple of bruises and some bits of me are bleeding but it's only minor blood loss. Also magical exhaustion. My left arm is injured and i will probably experience continued weakness there for the next week."

Unconsciously she had found herself analysing and reporting her injuries as if Albus was one of her fellow fighters who needed to know how impaired she was for the next fight, to know if they could rely on her. It took her a moment to realise that an 'I'm fine' would've probably been sufficient.

Albus said nothing though and only got them through to the ministry.

"Professor Dumbledore, sir!"

The boy at the security checkpoint stared wide eyed at his former headmaster before letting him through. Albus Dumbledore did not need to relinquish his wand – hers on the other hand they wanted to scan. She had no intention of informing the boy that she had another two on her body.

"Ah, Mr. Blair, a pleasure to see you again. How is your new job?"

"It's fantastic, sir. I get to meet all the important politicians and we even had the French minister here a couple of days ago."

He barely paid her any attention before handing back her wand. Albus said his goodbyes and they moved towards the elevator. Hermione found herself hiding behind Albus as everyone came into the elevator to chat to him. She would've put a barrier up to keep anyone from touching her but even she wasn't stupid enough to use magic when she was already magically exhausted.

They finally exited on the right floor and went to register her new invention.

"Miss Winchester here would like to register a new invention."

Albus sat with her in front of the obviously pureblood wizard. Instead of the anger or embarrassment she used to feel when people like him stared down on her, she felt only vaguely amused. She'd seen too much and done too much to let mere looks bother her.

"It's a rune network that allows muggle equipment to work within magical environments."

The wizard snorted, not even looking at the parchment Albus gave him.

"I doubt that. Besides who wants to use muggle stuff anyway."

Out of the corner of her eyes she noticed Albus looking taken aback at the treatment she was receiving.

"I am sorry, you must have not realised what your job is. You are here to note this down. I appreciate you may find yourself unable to comprehend the complexity behind the way these runes interact but your incompetency should in no way reflect upon your ability to send these off to your superiors. Moron."

The man in front of her huffed, insulted.

"I am not a moron, I am a pureblooded wizard."

Even Hermione couldn't suppress her lips twitching now and Albus was chuckling to himself.

"Mark Twain once said 'It's better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.'."

Albus laughed out loud, making the pureblood in front of her flush in anger but it also had the side effect of drawing his superiors across to them, curious as to what was going on.

"Good Afternoon, my name is Derek Fairfax, how may I help you."

Smiling widely Hermione stood up to shake Derek's hand.

"Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Fairfax. My name is Hermione Winchester. Please excuse Professor Dumbledore for the moment. I am here because I wish to register an invention. Your employee was kind enough to inform me that my invention is not needed and inferred that he didn't think me capable of coming up with the required rune network. Please, here."

She took the parchment from the other guy's desk and handed it on to Derek, amused to watch the other guy stammer.

Dereks eyebrows raised themselves as he looked through her parchment and she could see the surprise in his eyes.

"This is very impressive, Ms. Winchester. You said you came up with this on your own?"

Albus helpfully interjected.

"In only a week" His eyes were twinkling mischievously as he watched Derek gasp and Hermione shot him a quick glare.

"Sorry – he's exaggerating. I have been thinking about this for some time."

"Nonetheless this is incredibly impressive. Have you had a chance to test this yet?"

Nodding, Hermione explained her results and everyone ignored the pureblooded wizard who was now red faced and sitting at his desk, uncertain what to do now that his superior had acknowledged the invention.

For another hour Hermione found herself chatting away to Derek, explaining how the runes interacted and what the end results would be. Very pleased he made her sign a few bits of paperwork before sending her on her way. The invention would be tested over the next week and if it proved to work as she explained they would announce it in the Daily Prophet.

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At 6 p.m. she found herself forcefully escorted to Madame Pomphrey by Albus to ensure that she was sufficiently healthy.

"I'm fine – Mme Pomphrey, no scanning spells. And Albus I will not comply. I have exhausted my magic. I need rest. Not scans and Merlin knows what."

She turned around and walked away from the duo, fuming. If they used magic on her they would discover her other injuries and she had no explanation for those. Once outside the door she found herself face to face with Remus Lupin suddenly.

"Ah, sorry Remus, I'll get out of your way. Are you injured?"

Remus huffed out a laugh.

"I came to ask you that. I presume you haven't seen the Daily Prophet yet."

Genuinely puzzled she frowned at the boy but he simply, wordlessly, held out this evening's edition.

In the forefront were Albus and Voldemort fighting – you could see the fierce expressions, wands whirling and spells flying. It was always a sight to see and even a photograph did not detract from that. However Hermione immediately saw what Remus meant. In the background you could see her coming out of a roll, standing up and a flash of her hand at the wizards neck – and aforementioned wizard dropping. Her eyes were cold, her movements were swift and she could see why Remus had noticed it. Luckily her face was semi-obscured so hopefully no one else had noticed it was her.

Remus' honey coloured eyes were on her and she sighed. He was very handsome as a younger student.

"I am fine, a few bumps and bruises, some magical exhaustion. Nothing a couple hours of sleep wouldn't cure."

Eyebrows raised he looked at her. "I smell blood."

"Sorry, did you say smell?"

Albus turned up behind her, surprised to see her still standing there. Then he obviously put two and two together.

"Now, Hermione, playing dumb doesn't suit you."

Remus – who had flushed and tried to come up with a believable excuse – stopped and watched with an open mouth as Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Okay, sorry. Remus – I know you're a werewolf. A good friend of mine was too. No, I am not scared nor do I wish to stop associating with you. You're still you and you're still a good person." She smiled softly at him which only caused Remus' eyes to widen, his heartbeat to increase and his cheeks to flush. She really was incredibly pretty when she smiled. "And you, Albus, you are unfair. I was waiting until he was ready to tell me on his own!"

Albus simply chuckled and left them to their own devices. Hermione glared at his back before turning back to Remus and handing him the newspaper.

"Sorry about that. Professor Dumbledore has never been able to stop himself from sticking his overly large nose into other people's business." She'd raised her voice for the last bit and heard his answering laugh down the corridor.

"But yes, you can smell blood. A gouging spell went through my arm. It didn't hit any muscles, only tissues. I was intending to go to sleep and brew the nerve regeneration potion tomorrow. I have not got sufficient latent magic in me just now."

Hermione shrugged before grimacing. That had not been a very well thought out action, she had to admit. Her arm was hurting like a bitch and she really just wanted to go to sleep. The sooner the better.

"I- Can I see? I have got some experience in healing magic."

He gave her a self-deprecating smile and Hermione rolled her eyes before flicking him on the forehead.

"I swear, boys. So you're a werewolf. Big whoop. I don't see you running around eating people – so you're okay in my books. You don't want to kill, you lock yourself away; how much more are you expecting from yourself? Do you want to apologise for existing for the rest of your life? You are worth just as much as everyone else in this castle, you are just as good or bad as them. You have got a disease which puts you out of commission once a month; so what?"

Remus still didn't seem to catch on. With a sigh Hermione pulled up the sleeve on her arm and instructed Remus to cast a Finite on it whilst she used the cloth of her robe to rub away the makeup.

She heard him gasp and take an involuntary step back when he saw the words 'Mudblood' carved into her skin.

"We all have our stories and we all have our scars. Not all of them are visible. The people who did this – they wanted me to be scared, they wanted me to hate the person that I am, they wanted me to not want to exist anymore. I am still here and I am unafraid. I will not bow down because people think that I am inferior or that I should. I will not allow people to define me, I define myself. Why do you allow your life to be dictated by other people's opinion? Why should you give a fuck about what they think? Who are they to tell you what to do, Remus? Why aren't you standing proud and tall of having come out on top – why aren't you shouting from the rooftops? You are a werewolf but you've managed to attend school for seven years and you were at home ten years before that. You didn't turn a single other person into a werewolf or attack anyone. Allow yourself to live a little."

She watched him for a moment but it looked as though realisation was finally settling in. Patting his shoulders she left Remus to ruminate whilst she went to the room of requirement, her hands curling into fists and the newspaper article on the forefront of her mind.

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Righto, next week will have the next chapter. Let me know what you think!

By the way the moron comment actually took place. My boyfriends brother works as a chef and his commis-chef in one of his jobs was so idiotic he went "You're a moron." And the guy goes "No, I am catholic!" LOL! I had to put this in here. Idiots do exist! Long story short, my brother-in-law ended up drawing a line through the kitchen and telling the guy not to cross over it. That guy had actually used the same batter for fish for 4 weeks and he was proud of it. Yuck. Anyways, thought overall this was a funny story to share :)


	10. My raison d'être

**Creating your own future**

Chapter 10 – My raison d'être

**Dedicated to all my reviewers! Thank you so much for all your wonderful reviews! I'll address you individually in the next chapter, sorry. Just not sufficient time today.**

**AND thank you to my beta – though this chapter has not been beta'd yet as there is quite a backlog for Consume to work through. Anyway – big thank you for taking on the hard job!**

*wail* I didn't get the job. I had an interview today as my current job's over in two months and they didn't hire meeee! How could they *sniff*

Okay, that aside – I am sorry for the late updates. Personal life is up and down, birthday, job interviews (Hate those!), family fights etc. Anywho, I'll be on hols over Valentine with my secret lover (sounds raunchy, eh? But he's not actually secret. Got a ring and everything...), so no updates over the next few days.

And thanks for the apologies, though it's okay. I can take criticism. Sort of... *cough* anyway – for those that liked the revised version – I'll upload that in a month or two with some more chapters as well. Once this one's finished.

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"Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

That had been close. Hermione sank to the floor in the Room of Requirement, breathing fast. She had not expected meeting Remus, the fight in Diagon Alley or being unlucky enough to be photographed. How much could you really, really screw up in one day? Well, she had her answer to that now, at least.

She clenched her fist, intending to punch the wall but released the tension again really quickly when she felt an answering pain shoot up her arm and blood flowing again. This was just getting better all the time now.

Hissing slightly she automatically catalogued her injuries: flesh and nerve damage to the side of her arm – luckily missing the muscles -, bruises all over, scrapes and cuts and strained muscles. God, she hoped she could get back to training her body soon. She could have probably avoided half the situations if she had been a bit faster, a bit more aware and smoother in her movements.

Pulling out her weapons, she found herself staring at her knife. To her surprise she noticed her hand was shaking and cold sweat was breaking out. She was going into shock. During the fights and the war she'd always been in an "us or them" mode. She'd understood that if she didn't end their life they would go on killing and torturing and his or her new victims would be on her head.

Before her training with the mages, before the separation from Ron and Harry – she had felt morally right, ethically sound and had determined that killing was never okay, not under any circumstances.

But then she had seen what they would do if left alive, had seen what Death Eaters relished in doing, had seen the bereft friends and family members. And she had understood – it was war. Us or them. Neither can live whilst the other survives. But by that time everyone had chosen clear sides.

Now… She could still remember what Remus had shown her. They had listed the names, just below the photographs, the names of the deceased. Two had stood out to her. Two out of the twenty Death Eaters she knew had later on become renegades, had become spies on the Dark Lord, provided valuable information and thus saved countless lives. There might have been even more, but she had not known them personally. Code names were there for a reason.

It was true enough – you could not receive the dark mark unless you were willing. But the big difference was that people didn't know what they were agreeing to. Dumbledore had been old and somewhat removed and out of touch with the younger generation despite – or maybe because? – being the headmaster. Voldemort on the other hand was young, promised power, grandiose magic, excitement and what many people assumed was their right; to reign over the muggles and muggleborns.

The truth came later and with it, for many, the realisation that this was not what they wanted. Unfortunately of these only very few had the courage to truly stand against him and fight for what they believed.

And now she had killed two people she KNEW had stood up in the end, two people who she knew would have, no, could have done a lot of good. It hadn't occurred to her; hell, she hadn't even contemplated it. She had just assumed that everyone standing against her was truly willing but the truth of the matter was that they had not even been shown another option – and she'd condemned them for it. Had slit their throats, smashed them, whatever. In the end it didn't matter how they died. They were dead and it was her fault. She'd talked Dumbledore into it.

Her hands shook harder and she could feel the tears building up, eyes fixed on her knife. There had been no hesitation, no questioning. It had been so easy to fall back into it, kill – quickly, swiftly, quietly. Don't give them a chance to talk, don't allow them anything. Swift death was the only mercy given to Death Eaters.

But these two had become her friends. Samuel and Leah. They had been witty, funny and sarcastic. More than once they had saved her and got her friends out of tight situations. Merlin, she'd sat at campfires with them, laughed with them, hunted with them, ran with them and fought side by side with them. When they had died, it had been as recognised heroes amongst the renegades.

The bodies had to be burned to prevent them being turned into Inferi or similar creatures but their names had been known throughout all the renegade groups as two people who stood up for what they believed in, two heroes who had saved people and thwarted Voldemort's plans on more than one occasion.

They would never have that now. All they would be known for now would be their very short time with the Death Eaters because unless she was mistaken – and she wasn't – they had only joined Voldemort two weeks ago.

Two weeks, one bad decision and now she had snuffed out their entire lives. Part of her wanted to break into hysterical laughter, the other part wanted to curl up and cry. How was this possible? She'd killed off two great friends before they ever had a chance to live.

The other people her hands had killed today would never be able to become something better, would never be given the option of changing. She had taken away so many possible futures, so many possible people they could have turned into. And she had done it without hesitation, without regret; she'd been so certain she was doing the 'right' thing. She had forgotten that in this time even the Death Eaters had no real association with the meaning of their titles – they had no idea what death, killing and waging war meant, had no idea what horrors they could be convinced to perpetrate.

In all her knowledge she'd forgotten that these people had not yet made those decisions; she'd punished them for choices they may or may not make. She'd started to forgive Peter. Now was the time to start forgiving the others or at least judging them on their own merits, on their actions in the here and now, not on actions or decisions they may potentially make some twenty-odd years into the future. That was not fair. People could change. It was one thing she still believed in. People changed.

Part of her could still feel the warm spray of blood on her face, her hands and though she knew it was the most unhelpful thing she could do, she couldn't help but wonder – had that been Sam's blood? Or Leah's? Had she stood behind them and slit her knife through their throats, dropped the body as a dead weight, not cared, not realised that it had been her own friends? Or may she had gotten them with the whip or the bombarda? Were their bodies even still recognisable?

Oh god. A tremor ran through her body as Hermione felt the tears running down her cheeks. She hadn't meant to – really, she hadn't. They had been her friends. So after all this time it had gone full circle – Aiden betrayed her and in turn she betrayed Samuel and Leah who had both given up everything and put their faith in her, believed that she could do what others had failed to do. Kill Voldemort. Now they had been only 26 and 21 respectively, too young to have their lives cut short. By her, the one who had vowed to always help them wherever – and whenever - she could.

Merlin, how conceited had she become? She honestly had thought she'd known it all, had seen it all, known what everyone could or would turn into. When had the greater good started to matter more than the people? When had she forgotten the individuals she harmed with her decision, when had she forgotten the other Harry's out there? When had she turned into Dumbledore, believing only her own judgment and discarding people's choices for the greater good? What fucking greater good was it that allowed her to be judge, jury and executioner? Since when had she forgotten the muggle saying about absolute power corrupting absolutely? When had she stopped holding herself accountable?

Shaking, tears running, sobs wrenching themselves from her throat, head hurting and nose running, Hermione's mind immediately, faultlessly recalled her own decisions which had sent people to their deaths. And what a fucked up place it had been to have people volunteer for suicide missions. And she had agreed. She'd sent them to certain deaths. All in the name of the greater good. There was red in her ledger and nothing she could do now would ever change that. Her hands, literally, were covered in other people's blood. People she'd killed. Saving one person doesn't mean it's okay to kill another.

She had forgotten that and it had taken a trip to the past and the death of two of her allies – two very good friends to remember that simple fact. And unfortunately for her, her mind was able to show her all her flaws all too easily, able to recall all the wrong bloody calls she'd made; Hermione curled in on herself and allowed herself to be engulfed in the horror, pain and grief her mind so easily conjured up again.

Much later that night, drained and exhausted, Hermione sank into bed. Her tears had dried and she was unable to cry anymore. There were no more tears left. Her heart felt incredibly heavy and she felt as if her entire body was screaming in sorrow and desperation. There was nothing left of her, nothing of the person she'd once been or wanted to be.

Mercifully she had no dreams that night as her body and magic worked to regenerate themselves.

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"What about animating everyone's food?"

Sirius grinned at his friends.

"Did that in 5th year."

Peter raised his eyebrows, looking at Sirius. It had been his idea even back then.

"Oh. Yeah. Forgot about that. Huh..."

"What about everyone blurting out their deepest, darkest secrets?"

"You want Remus confessing to the world that he's a werewolf?"

Sirius look at James in askance and watched his best mate start looking sheepish.

"Hadn't thought of that... But what about everyone professing their love?"

Peter leant back, staring at his two friends in surprise.

"You both realise that potions illegal for a reason. Love potions are no joking matter."

"Hey, just because Moony isn't here doesn't mean you need to be the spoil-sport suddenly. 'sides, we didn't mean Love potions. Everyone loves someone, parent, friend, or someone like Lily – the most beautiful, perfect and cleverest witch to ever walk the face of the earth." James sighed, thinking of the beautiful redhead he adored.

"What Prongs means to say, Wormtail" interjected Sirius, rolling his eyes at his friend who was off to La-la land. Again. "is that we don't need something like a love potion. There are some third year potions which are made for witches and wizards to get the other party to confess their 'hidden feelings'. It's easy. Now all we need to do is convince the house elves to put this into everyone's meal..."

James leaned forward, eyes wide and grin broad. It was soon echoed by the two boys around him.

"That is actually brilliant! Imagine the teachers though – eww! But I think that might actually work... and it'd be a fantastic prank! Though you've already shouted out for everyone to hear whom it is you love, Prongs."

The three boys grinned, teasing each other before they pulled out their prank book to suss out the details. Just then, the portrait to the Gryffindor common room opened and let in the fourth member of the Marauders.

Remus looked shell-shocked as he ungracefully plopped down into the seat next to Peter, staring at nothing in particular.

"Moony? What's wrong?"

James waved a hand in front of their best friend but received no reaction. It took another moment of confused looks being exchanged between the others before Sirius prodded his friend and finally received a two-word – and not very helpful – reply.

"She knows."

Peter, Sirius and James exchanged puzzled looks, before shrugging their shoulders, deciding that for once none of them had a clue what their friend was on about.

"...care to elaborate?"

Remus blinked, for once taking in the surroundings, but no one was paying attention. When the Marauders were plotting – which he suspected his friends had actually been doing prior to his interruption as he could see Peter sitting with his pen poised above their Prank journal – everyone made sure to stay far away from them.

So he turned back to his friends, feeling surprisingly calm and vaguely curious about their reaction to the news he was about to share.

"Hermione. She knows I'm a werewolf."

"WHAT?"

This did now draw everyone's stares to them and it only took a few seconds for the Marauders to grab their stuff and disappear into their dorm, still exchanging half-shocked, half-horrified looks, communicating – or attempting to anyway – silently.

Doors closed and silencing spell up courtesy of Sirius they huddled around Remus, almost comically cautious when they looked at their once a month furry friend.

The Wizarding world's opinion was not exactly great of werewolves – children and adults alike. It was the reason it had taken Remus so long to confess to his friends, the reason he had been astounded – and in tears – when his friends had turned into animals in front of him, speaking not of separation and of leaving him as he'd half-feared when they'd spent most of the year sequestered away from him and left him to his own devices; instead they'd spoken of an incredible bond, an unbreakable friendship that would survive years, no- decades and weather all storms. They had been at his side when everyone else had turned their back. They had not only found out everything there was to know about werewolves but also a way to be at his side, to support him, to take away his fear of hurting or killing someone and most importantly, to alleviate the terrifying feeling of losing control over your own body. The irony of all ironies was that he'd readily kill anyone that threatened what he'd deemed his pack now.

"You know we could dangle her from the Astronomy tower for a couple of hours, if you want..." Peter hesitantly suggested when it became obvious that no one wanted to speak.

To everyone's surprise Remus burst into easy, relaxed laughter, amber eyes sparkling with mischief.

"She told me not to bow down."

James, Sirius and Peter looked at each other, equally bewildered.

"Mate, I'll say what we all are thinking anyway. HUH?" Sirius gave the happy werewolf a grin, trying to puzzle out what the latest addition to Hogwarts had done now.

"She told me I'm okay. I haven't killed anyone. I lock myself away. I ... I am a good person. I shouldn't be apologising for existing. I..."

It wasn't hard to read the sheer wonder in his eyes as the brown haired werewolf looked up, amber eyes shining and hands shaking minutely.

"I haven't done anything wrong."

Self-flagellation had been such an intrinsic part of the werewolf since they'd met him it now seemed as though a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

As one the rest of the Marauders all crowded around Remus, whose shoulders shook with the tears of years of pent up angst and terror finally released, supported by his friends. As he had always been. It was the reason they had found each other in first year and never let go of one another since then.

James had been raised, isolated from other children as his parents were worried about an attack since his dad was head auror. They had, in turn, tried to overcompensate – so James came to school, arrogant, bigheaded but inside so scared of not finding friends. All his life he had been looking for a best mate. He'd played pretend with the house elves or made up an imaginary friend but he'd never been able to really tease each other, to fight and shout at each other and in the next breath plan the world's biggest and best prank. It was all he'd wanted – a friend that understood him. And maybe, a decade or so in the future, someone like his mum was to his dad. He'd never expected meeting her on the first day on the train – but the red hair, the sparkling green eyes and her lively, cheerful countenance as she'd enthusiastically waved to her family had taken his attention in a heartbeat. He'd not immediately understood what the feeling was – so he'd insulted the hook-nosed, shy looking boy next to her, hopefully elevating his superior station and looks to make her his friend. Needless to say it hadn't quite worked out that way. But nevertheless he had found the friend he'd desperately sought and another two as a bonus.

Sirius had been raised in an environment suffused with dark magic; his parents had actively encouraged it and tried to make him interested in it. He'd been with his uncle on occasion though and he remembered Andromeda, remembered muggles. He had not been able to comply with their point of view, unable to suppress his nature to such an extent and had in turn started acting out more and more, challenging his parents at every turn. Aside from his uncle – whom he saw only rarely – his life was filled with darkness, bruises and scorn. His brother had been turned against him when he had not been able to find the strength and conviction within himself to stand beside his brother and against his parents. So Sirius had come to Hogwarts, spirit unbroken and rebellious. He'd found the most Gryffindor-ish person he could have ever looked for and not left his side since. All he'd been looking for was acceptance.

Remus, on the other hand, had lived deep in the woods – with a mother that was afraid of him and prone to cower if he started to yell in a childish temper tantrum, and a father who spent most of his time away, trying to gather sufficient funds to not only feed his child and wife but to also keep the heavy iron cage in tip top shape and the monthly first aid supplies sufficient to stop his small son from dying after having survived the transformation. When Dumbledore had allowed him to come to Hogwarts it had partly been a dream come true but also with the awareness that the fee was probably crippling his parents and that his mother continued to be afraid of him harming others – that she thought he was capable of that. It had taught Remus at an early age to be both afraid and to hate a part of himself that he would never be able to get rid of. It had taught him to apologise for - as Hermione put it – existing. All he'd ever hoped for was to finish all seven years at Hogwarts; to find people who'd accept him and help him had never even featured in his wildest dreams.

Peter had a sick mother whom he'd been caring for since he was old enough to walk. He couldn't remember anything else. Growing up far too quickly he had never had the chance to enjoy in plays with other children, part of him always worrying about his mother where other children had no concerns beyond where their favourite toy was. He'd felt horrible about feeling relieved at being sent to Hogwarts. The years of caring for his mother and his younger sister had taught him responsibility but they had also taught him distain and a small part of him was angry at his parents for putting him in that position in the first place. It shouldn't have been up to him to take care of her, to play mum to his own mother and his sister, to pick himself up when he'd fallen without a kiss, to fix his own lunches, to dress his sister and make sure she had her bath on time, to clean the house. But his father had left when he was three years old and it was only the government paying for his mother that allowed them to survive at all. St. Mungos was not an option no one knew his dad had left. Hogwarts had been everything he'd ever hoped it would be – friends, levity, laughter, pranks and childishness were rampant. He was quieter most times and his friends sometimes got carried away with their elaborate plans and forgot about him; but that was okay. Because he knew they'd always be at his side, they'd never betray each other. They had each others' backs. They had vowed it.

The Marauders spent the evening joking, pranking, reminiscing and, above all, laughing. One of their own finally realised what the others had known all along but the relief was heartfelt and shared, the joy almost visible in the air as the boys planned their next mischief. No one dared asked the next morning why James' hair was red, why Sirius had feathers popping up over his body sporadically, why Peter had colourful polka dots on his face – which would, at regular intervals, turn into lions chasing snitches – or why Remus would sporadically burst into songs. It was the Marauders. No one really wanted to know, though all of them smiled at the happy grins the much admired and adored group exchanged all day.

Even Lily found herself surprisingly left alone by James Potter. To her own surprise she found herself intentionally seeking him out in turn, expecting the usual line about asking her out – though it never came as James, unbeknownst to her, was too happily ensconced in his own world full of pranks and happy werewolves for even Lily Evans to intrude.

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The world was changing. Everything she knew, everything she'd planned could already be wrong. She'd known that – technically. Now, thrown in her face in such a fashion, she was hit with the stark reality of it.

There was no guaranteed success.

A part of her had believed that – hey, go to the past, change it and it'll all be right as rain. Remus tried to warn her that her fairytale would implode. She hadn't wanted to hear it, hadn't wanted to believe and silently apologised to a Remus who, by now, only existed in her memory. She'd thought there was no way they could lose. She'd thought she could save everyone.

Despite her racing thoughts her breathing was calm, slow. It was the same as it had always been. The same reason they had always underestimated her, always would underestimate her.

They thought her female, full of emotions, a bookworm and filled to the brim with moral righteousness. They had never understood. Never would.

Hermione pushed herself up from the bed, slowly walking over to the mirror to fix her appearance.

Since she was eleven only one thought, one main reason had dominated her entire being. For Harry, for Ron. They'd thought her moral, righteous, good, emotive; they weren't wrong. But in the end, none of that mattered because the only thing that mattered to her above all – and anyone – else were Harry and Ron. She'd killed in their name before and she'd do it again. She'd sent people to their deaths – she'd walked to her own certain death more times than she could count; all in an effort to save Harry and Ron. Nothing else mattered. Not her. Not her lovers. Not her friends or troops.

Harry. Ron. Her lifelines.

Voldemort really should've known. The eternal bookworm who knew and could repeat every rule applicable to Hogwarts ever written in her sleep, backwards, had willingly broken every single one of them, again and again for them.

These two boys had saved her when she was eleven, had been her friends and they all tried to do the right thing, to get out of this alive.

She had been lost in despair, momentarily, yesterday. Whilst in the sanctuary – a safe haven Remus had built in the depths of Canada for people who were broken like her – she had been taught to always focus on the reason she was doing this.

To her, there was no one who could ever compare or hope to measure up to her boys. They were her reason and for them she would break herself again and again, bit by bit until there was no part of her left if that was what was required. She would kill anyone and everyone in her way, even Dumbledore himself. There was nothing she wouldn't do for them.

Even if it meant that the scrambled bits that Remus had so carefully pieced together again to give the outward appearance of the Hermione she'd used to be would be smashed beyond recognition and only the warrior was left – it was more than worth it. If only she managed to save them.

With efficient, practised movements Hermione hid the tear tracks, the reddened eyes and nose. The tremors were gone too – her own lack of latent magic luckily meant that the massive amounts of magic she'd been surrounded by yesterday had barely affected her as she had lost her own magical senses for them.

It should never be easy and with a small glance at herself in the mirror, Hermione allowed herself a small, bitter smile as she felt another part of her die; a part that had loved Samuel and Leah, that had believed in a wonderful future where everyone was alive, that had believed she'd never need to betray anyone ever again, never need to spill blood beyond those who had deserved it beyond any doubt. Her soul was torn and beyond recognition. She doubted that even Remus would be able to gather all the small pieces that were left together again into what had once been Hermione Granger.

The coldness suffused her entire being, though her heart felt as though it had been replaced by an empty hole, a constant, pained, ache echoing through her being.

No matter.

Hermione Granger did not matter.

Hermione Winchester did not matter.

Samuel and Leah. Just another two names amongst a long list of people Hermione had failed. She'd pay for them when everything was said and done.

But none of that would matter as long as Harry and Ron had the happy lives they deserved. It didn't matter what atrocities she had to commit to make this happen.

For Harry. For Ron. No one else mattered.

Harry. The green eyed boy – so much like his mother in that respect – looked at her with sadness, seeming to ask what had become of his best friend.

Ron. The sweet redhead whom she'd once, temporarily, thought of as a potential lover, looked at her with an equally bitter smile, seeming to nod at her in support of her decision.

He'd always understood where Harry couldn't. He never saw how much he inspired people to be the best they could be, how so many people idolised him now because of what happened when he was a baby but because of the sheer strength of character, the unfailing faith, the courage that had not been tempered by years of fighting Voldemort and the unfaltering ability to stand back up, to stand up for what you believe in and to fight for those you hold dear. He had inspired thousands. Ron and her had come to an unspoken understanding in their younger years already that they would always protect Harry, always fight for him against everyone else.

He was... Harry. And she'd fight for him with her dying breath – she'd give all she had to give and then she would give and keep on giving until there was nothing left. For him. For them.

Nodding back to the redhead she walked on and the ghosts of her memory dispersed as she opened the door of the room of requirement.

Anything for her boys.

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Please tell me what you think :) and don't hold back - please, honesty is much appreciated!


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